School’s out for the summer, but in the world of our RPO partnerships this is the time of year where we focus on early careers recruitment, in anticipation of entering apprentice, undergraduate and graduate markets in the autumn. Right now, we’re talking with clients both established and prospective about their needs in this area and, as ever, the focus on using EC programs to correct or balance diversity of workforce and (future) leadership remains a priority.
Most organisations will not necessarily view themselves as having a “diversity crisis” of the kind described in a recent article highlighting research into consulting and finance hiring in the City of London. However, many will benefit from accepting its key takeaway that, “employers are more likely to hire black candidates if they rely on anonymised, ‘skills-based’ assessments in the hiring process”.
In my experience, employers have long moved on from the most “traditional methods”. It’s certainly been a decade or more since I’ve heard of an early careers program requiring a cover letter or making space on an application form for candidates to list all the University societies of which they were definitely the President.
But my experience is not universal. I’m not a graduate looking to start my career, and I’m lucky enough to work in a recruitment business with an award-winning assessment consultancy arm, partnering with clients who take hiring for true potential seriously. That doesn’t mean there’s not more work for us to do within these partnerships—even for those who’ve taken positive steps in this area. Each year brings a new implementation cycle, and new opportunities to improve.
Here are some solutions we’ve developed, launched or refined in our early careers RPO partnerships:
Assessing for Skills & Strengths in Early Careers Recruitment
Over time, many employers have reduced focus on abilities in favour of strengths- or behaviour-based testing, which is considered more conducive to measuring potential. Organisationally we broadly agree, but, where appropriate, we continue to recommend reasoning tests covering verbal, numerical and cognitive ability.
The key here is not to use them in isolation as a blunt tool. Benchmark or cut off scores should be set only within the parameters of adverse impact analysis using anonymised candidate diversity data, and ability tests should be followed up with strengths or behavioural assessments. The link RPO expertise can create between recruitment technology, recruiters, and business psychologists is critical in this space.
Recruiting for Role Fit to Enhance Diversity
Predicting workplace performance and potential through behavioural assessment is often seen by early careers talent acquisition leaders as a smarter approach to hiring. Experiential tests, backed by data and research, producing personal interview guides for final stage assessment often leads to better outcomes and maintains diversity in the process.
This approach highlights candidate suitability against role fit over culture fit, the latter being a potential barrier to creating a more diverse workforce (the concept of aligning new recruits with a prevailing culture or mindset being an obvious denial of the need for organisational change).
Focusing on Culture Add Rather than Culture Fit
I am not yet aware of any early careers programs where assessment is now 100% anonymised. Whether online via video, as part of a wider virtual assessment experience, or in a traditional face-to-face meeting, an interview is going to happen before a hire is made. Removing anonymity can introduce bias, and we promote two key mitigations.
Firstly, design and deliver structured interviews which are competency-based and/or focused on culture add (what the candidate can contribute to your organisation’s culture) over culture fit. Our teams often partner with hiring managers on best practice in this area, even facilitating or assessing directly where needed. This helps maintain consistency and relevance, avoiding questions on personal interests or previous experience—instead asking specific questions on working styles and preferences.
Secondly, put candidate experience first and learn from feedback to provide support and guidance, setting the stage for success. By hearing the candidates’ voice, and measuring their experience across, we’ve been able to improve outcomes for employers.
We’re looking forward to seeing how these solutions progress, and what improvements they bring as we take early careers RPO from now to next, supporting the diverse workforces of the future—identifying and unlocking true potential wherever it exists.
Recruitment marketing is now an essential strategy as the talent acquisition landscape is more competitive today than it has been at any point in history. Specifically, the global talent shortage stands at 40 million workers and is forecasted to reach more than 85 million by 2030, costing employers around the world more than $8 trillion in lost revenue. This means that, to stay ahead, employers need to implement new strategies and reimagine what talent acquisition can be; talent leaders need to be able to draw in candidates in the same way that brands draw in consumers.
To make that process even more difficult, the types of offerings that job-seekers want from a potential employer has shifted dramatically in the past few years: According to LinkedIn’s Global Talent Trends Report, since 2019, there’s been sharp growth in members posting about the following topics:
The data is clear: Candidates are seeking employers that can provide flexibility and a greater work/life balance. As a result, organizations that excel at highlighting a company culture that’s compatible with current talent market trends will remain competitive in the hunt for talent.
As a talent professional, you may not think about marketing as a recruitment function. However, a large part of ensuring that your talent pipeline is stocked with the best talent involves making sure that your organization is an attractive place to work for candidates. Thus, recruitment and marketing need to work together. The job of a talent acquisition team is more than just hiring great talent; it also includes attracting talent and enticing them to commit. In this four-part section, we’ll cover how employers can leverage modern marketing techniques to recruit and better engage candidates at each stage of the recruitment marketing funnel.
Recruitment Marketing and Hiring Strategies Part One: The Case for Implementing Modern Digital Marketing Strategies
Typically, consumers require engagement across multiple touchpoints before deciding on a purchase—and it’s up to an organization’s marketing team to facilitate engagement at each stage of the sales funnel. Job-seekers are no different and often need multiple interactions with an organization’s employer brand before applying for a role; in this case, it’s the job of the talent acquisition team to facilitate these interactions throughout the recruitment funnel.
Granted, the stages of the talent acquisition funnel depend on an organization’s hiring practices, but we can make some generalizations. For the purposes of this article, we’ll cover three vital functions in the recruitment marketing process: 1) attracting active and passive candidates, 2) converting candidates and 3) closing candidates. During each of these functions, talent teams need to properly engage and nurture job-seekers with the right recruitment marketing strategies. Below, we outline smart recruitment marketing strategies for sourcing passive candidate and active candidate engagement.
Talent Attraction: Sourcing Passive Candidates
According to LinkedIn, 70% of the global workforce are passive candidates, with the remaining 30% of talent actively seeking jobs. With that in mind, the first—and arguably most important—function in recruitment marketing for talent acquisition teams is to determine a strategy to attract candidates. Of course, candidates may already have some idea of your organization as a consumer brand, so the main objective of this stage is to introduce your organization’s employer brand to job-seekers for the first time to improve recruiting passive candidates.
At this stage, your engagement with candidates should be designed to gain and retain their interests, with the hope of converting them later in the recruitment marketing funnel. As such, building employer brand awareness and providing positive candidate experiences is key. For instance, consider how candidates will perceive your organization through the channels listed below. Will they have a positive view of what it’s like to work for your organization? Do they get an accurate picture of your company culture?
Converting Passive Candidates
The main marketing priority for talent acquisition teams during the passive candidate conversion stage should be to steer candidate interest into action, thereby converting them from job-seekers into active prospects in the talent pipeline. This step occurs when candidates gain a positive impression from the touchpoints they encounter in the attraction stage.
Fortunately, there are various methods for converting candidates. For example, they can sign up for a newsletter, register for an event or request job posting updates via your career page. And, while they may not have applied to any of your open positions yet, they’re interested enough in your organization to provide their contact information. Similarly, employers can also leverage talent communities to convert candidates looking to connect with other professionals in their industry. Remember, to comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), just make sure to collect two types of consent when collecting personal data (such as email, phone, address, name, etc.) from applicants.
Additionally, at this stage, keep in mind that you’re asking candidates to provide your organization with two of their valuable resources: Time and personal information. Next, at the conversion stage, you’re asking for contact information, but only a small amount of time. Then, to get to the next stage, candidates will have to give your organization even more of both. Therefore, in the touchpoints listed below, consider what the experience is like for candidates; is it positive and easy enough to get someone to a closing stage?
Closing Candidates
During the closing function in recruitment marketing, talent teams are managing a flow of vetted and engaged candidates with a goal to turn these candidates into applicants. This means that candidates are willing to take the time to complete your application and provide you with a significant amount of personal information. Notably, the candidate is also making an emotional investment in your organization; they’re excited for this role. As such, they could be setting themselves up for disappointment if they don’t make it through the process. For this reason, it’s important to consider what you’re asking of candidates to help get them through the closing process.
Furthermore, while closing prospects, your recruitment marketing materials should aid the candidate’s decision-making process by informing them of open positions, inviting them to recruiting events, or even proposing a virtual meet-and-greet where the candidate can casually meet with members of your team. Think about the touchpoints listed below and how candidates will experience them. Likewise, communicate about your interviewing and hiring process upfront for a more seamless experience for both candidates and hiring managers.
Closing Candidates
In parts two and three, we’ll go into greater detail on how talent acquisition teams can leverage modern marketing techniques to intelligently engage candidates at each stage of the recruitment marketing funnel.
Recruitment Marketing and Hiring Strategies Part Two: Creating Talent Acquisition Content That Engages Candidates
Content marketing has fast become a go-to channel for marketing teams looking to generate interest in products; gain leads; drive organic traffic; and build a library of informative and in-depth content for clients and prospects.
However, attracting both active and passive candidates with content isn’t limited to just marketing to potential customers; rather, recruitment departments can also harness the power of well-crafted content to convert job-seekers into applicants. In fact, content marketing can help talent teams engage top candidates in a number of thoughtful and meaningful ways that intersect with a job-seeker’s interests.
Effective content for recruitment marketing can also make a difference in moving the candidate along to the next stage. In particular, content marketing as a talent acquisition strategy should focus on engaging job-seekers with relevant articles, white papers relevant to their career interests, webinars, videos, or podcasts to help a candidate navigate through an employer’s recruitment funnel. When brainstorming recruitment content, look at industry publications and professional groups on LinkedIn to identify current topics of interest for candidates in your industry.
In Part Two of this section, we’ll discuss how to create relevant content and ensure candidates are able to find it.
Recruitment Digital Marketing: Considering Different Types of Talent Acquisition Content
An effective content marketing strategy includes a variety of content types to fill various channels and appeal to different types of candidates. That’s because some candidates may prefer to watch a video, whereas others would rather read an article. Likewise, some may like to learn in bite-sized pieces, while other appreciate an in-depth article. With that in mind, below are a few types of content to consider adding to your mix.
Recruitment Marketing Ideas: Leverage Your Career Blog
Your organization may already have a blog where the marketing team regularly posts content for your potential customers. In the same vein, consider a blog on your careers site to better educate and engage candidates about what it’s like to work for your organization.
Interviewing employees across all roles and asking them to describe how they got to where they are today
Sharing news about exciting projects
Featuring hiring managers to discuss the hiring process and post updates on upcoming events
Similarly, if you have strong writers on your team, ask them to write short blogs about their experiences.
Video Content
Video is a great format for recruitment content that often boosts candidate engagement. Take the booming popularity of video-based social media platforms like TikTok, YouTube and Instagram as evidence that this is a particularly influential type of content for young workers. Video is particularly powerful on social channels, so consider amplifying your efforts by encouraging colleagues to act as employee brand ambassadors for your organization on their social channels. Besides, job-seekers trust an organization’s employees three times more than the company itself to provide credible information on what it’s like to work there.
If you’re just getting started in video, don’t worry about high production quality. Due to the popularity of tools like Zoom during the pandemic, as well as the proliferation of video on social media, candidates are used to watching basic videos. In fact, the authentic feel of these types of videos can often yield even higher engagement than professionally produced content.
Micro & Social Media Recruitment Content
Talent teams are stretched thin, so consistently creating long-form content may be challenging. So, if your team lacks the bandwidth to create long-form content, consider shorter, “micro content.” This might include sharing small bits of entertaining or informative news or industry updates with candidates on social media or micro-content platforms.
Social media, in particular, is perfect for micro content, with 94% of content marketers using social media platforms to distribute content. This content could include fun moments from the workplace, employee testimonials, or short videos of the company participating at a career fair or a conference. Essentially, content marketing is an opportunity to explore as many different ways to connect with your audience as possible; just remember to stay on brand and keep a consistent theme with language and design. This way, prospects will enjoy a more uniform and cohesive candidate experience.
SEO & Recruitment Marketing: Leveraging Search to Source Talent
If you take the time to create content for candidates, it’s important to make sure that they can find it easily. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the practice of optimizing a website to rank higher in search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing—and doing so can help drive job-seekers to your careers page organically. In particular, well-optimized pages rely on homing in on and deploying the right set of keywords, as well as tailoring metadata for search and making sure the pages load quickly.
When done right—and in conjunction with high-quality content—SEO can lead to a great deal of traffic and conversions on a career site. Plus, leveraging SEO as a talent acquisition strategy makes sense, as 70% of job searches begin on Google. What’s more, 51% of all content consumption comes from organic traffic. Accordingly, with employers across the globe struggling not only to source and recruit talent, but also to increase retention, a smart SEO strategy is an integral component in the recruitment marketing arsenal.
Metadata
Meta titles and meta descriptions are the two fields that show up on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). This is the page you see after typing something into a search engine like Google. Metadata makes it easier for Google to spot and index your careers page content on relevant search results pages. For this reason, your meta title should be clear so job-seekers immediately know the title and location of the job opening when they visit your page. The meta description is the caption beneath the title that describes the web page’s content in more detail. A tailored meta description helps Google and job-seekers quickly identify and interact with your content in the way that you intend.
When creating a meta description, try to stick to the following guidelines:
Limit it to no more than 155 characters.
Keep it clear and concise, with a call to action for job-seekers.
Reference the language of the page you’re working on to really nail your metadata.
Keyword Research
Although it can be time-consuming, researching and choosing the right keywords can also help you obtain greater visibility from qualified job-seekers, as well as increase organic search traffic to your site.
Begin by understanding which short- and long-tail keywords job-seekers use to search for jobs relevant to your company. You can also research which keywords your competitors are using in their job postings, as well as more comprehensive content, to inform and expand your keyword list. Notably, this may require job titles and descriptions to be altered. While you’re at it, pay close attention to keyword intent—the reason for a job-seeker’s search. Ensuring that this is part of your SEO recruitment strategy guarantees that keywords are aligned to your broader business goals. Additionally, if you’re a brick-and-mortar business, utilize locally focused keywords in your content to better reach quality candidates in close proximity to you.
Content marketing can also fuel other parts of the recruitment marketing mix, and email is the perfect channel to start expanding your content marketing program. What’s more, content and email marketing campaigns can complement each other by increasing the sharing of content and expanding reach. In the next section, we’ll offer tips on how email marketing can give your content a boost.
Recruitment Marketing and Hiring Strategies Part Three: Email Marketing & Talent Acquisition
Email marketing has been around for decades as an effective means of prospect engagement. However, that doesn’t mean that you can just throw together an email, send it out and expect great results. Nowadays, prospects are savvy about techniques deployed by marketers and may become annoyed or tune out marketing messaging that’s done incorrectly.
However, when recruitment marketing email campaigns are successful, recruiters can engage candidates at the right cadence. According to a DataBox survey, 33.3% of marketers said they sent weekly emails, while 26.7% sent monthly emails. In this case, recruiters can leverage the expertise of their marketing teams regarding send times, email schedules and other data points to ensure that content is optimally delivered. Plus, well-cadenced and timely emails ensure that your employer brand is in front of prospects at the right time, making your employer brand more memorable to prospects looking to shift careers.
Furthermore, email recruitment marketing can be an effective strategy for distributing your marketing content to candidates, as well as building additional trust in your employer brand. Notably, 77% of consumers preferred email marketing over other methods of permission-based advertising. And, email marketing often produces results because the audience has opted in to receive marketing materials and wants to hear from you. (Plus, they can choose to opt out at any time.)
So, in this article, we’ll cover the different types of emails that you can use to interact with candidates; how you can use your content marketing collateral to boost the influence of your emails; and how to craft effective messages.
Types of Recruitment Marketing Emails
Email Newsletters
Marketing teams often send email newsletters to prospective and current clients to update recipients on company news, content, products, and other company updates. Similarly, talent acquisition teams should also consider creating newsletters to keep candidates warm.
Specifically, your newsletter could share thought leadership pieces from your organization, webinars, job events and more. You can also use email newsletters to share the content marketing pieces you’ve created for your careers site. Or, link to articles on your careers blog or a video interview you’ve posted with a current employee. Periodical newsletters and other helpful content will also keep your employer brand top of mind and increase the likelihood of your talent community recommending you to a member of their network.
JobApplication Invitation Email
The first time many candidates hear from an organization is when a recruiter or sourcer reaches out inviting them to apply for a specific role. These types of emails are common, and your recruiters likely already send them frequently. However, they can be made more effective.
For example, the goal of your email copy should be to gain a prospective candidate’s attention in the first sentence. Therefore, crafting an engaging, but brief introductory sentence or two helps the reader understand who you are and why you’re reaching out.
Typical recruitment emails often begin with an introduction of the recruiter, such as: “Hi, I’m a recruiter with {employer}. We have an open position you may be interested in.”
Instead, consider opening with: “Hi {Name of Candidate}, My name is {Your Name} and I noticed that your experience in X could make you a great fit for Y role at Z company. Would you be interested in setting up a time to discuss Y role and Z company?”
In the first approach, notice how the company puts itself ahead of the candidate. Alternatively, in a more personalized approach, the employer places the prospect at the heart of every communication.
Interview Invitation Email
If a candidate makes it further along in the recruitment funnel, you’ll likely send them an email inviting them to interview. And, when inviting a candidate to interview, it’s crucial that the following are included in your recruitment email:
Where the interview will be
The agenda of the interview
Who will be involved in the interview
Providing all of this information upfront will help everyone be better prepared, more productive and better focused on what matters during the interview. Below, we’ve outlined how to structure your interview invitation email:
1st paragraph: Quickly explain who you are and why you’re emailing the candidate so they know they’re being invited to interview, not apply.
2nd paragraph: Here, provide a date that’s best for your team or give a few options for the candidate to choose from.
Third paragraph: Offer a clear agenda to keep the candidate on track. This will also give the candidate a better idea of what to expect and help them prepare.
Fourth paragraph: Provide the location of where your interview will take place, including how to get there and who to ask for when they arrive. Or, if the interview will not be in-person, share instructions on how to interview virtually.
Offer Emails
Top candidates are often sent offers quickly after interviewing, so it’s important to reach out fast. The moment your talent acquisition team is ready to make an offer, be sure to include the following in your offer email.
First paragraph: Include a brief greeting and review of the interview you had with them.
Second paragraph: Get right to the point and congratulate them on the offer. Double-check everything and make sure that you’re presenting the offer in the best way possible in terms of candidate expectation, salary, benefits and work location. Many times, this information is the deciding factor as to whether the candidate accepts the offer.
Call to action: Remind the candidate that they need to take action, outlining when and how to take it. Also, include contact information in case the candidate has questions about the offer. Finally, to end this email with a persuasive punch, include a line about the candidate’s future with your organization.
Best Practices for Crafting Recruitment Emails
Subject Lines
Subject lines are arguably the most important component of an email as 64% of email recipients decide to open emails based on subject lines. Therefore, while much of your focus may be on creating the copy and imagery of your email, you should also take time to write a great subject line.
More precisely, a great subject line is short, descriptive and provides a call to action (CTA). Unfortunately, many recruiting emails are written without mobile users in mind. But, with 41% of emails opened on mobile devices, it’s crucial to keep your writing concise because most mobile devices are only capable of displaying five or six words of a subject line. Also, consider a little personalization in your subject lines. Personalized subject lines in email increase unique open rates by up to 27%, leading to an 11% higher click-to-open rate overall. Consider this option:
In this example, the sender has personalized the email by referencing a career milestone, while simultaneously inviting the recipient to have a low-pressure conversation. This approach appeals to the candidate’s experience and offers the promise of a career opportunity where future growth is possible.
Body Copy
While you may be tempted to share a lot of information in your cold recruiting emails, recipients might not have time for all of it. Conversely, a study by Boomerang found that emails with 75 to 100 words had the highest response rate; so, write short, descriptive and action-driven copy and provide only the essential information that’s relevant to your candidates. Additionally, avoid buzzwords or jargon so that your offer clearly stands out.
The labor market will likely remain highly competitive for the foreseeable future, with employers battling it out for candidates’ attention. And now, more than ever, candidates understand what they want from work and are trying to find an environment where they’ll belong and grow. So, to attract talent, it’s essential to show candidates that you’re offering more than just a job—and that begins with recruitment marketing that showcases the value you provide to candidates.
Remember, the goal of talent acquisition marketing is no longer to just post a job offer and wait for applicants; it’s about fostering a community, enriching its members, and helping to nurture and encourage them to consider a career with your organization.
Part 4: Recruitment Marketing Strategy in Action: Bridging the Gap Between Consumer & Employer Brand for Vodafone
A well-managed and reputable employer brand can go a long way in helping organizations recruit better talent, improve hiring metrics and position an organization as an employer of choice in their industry. In fact, according to Glassdoor, 92% of candidates would consider changing employers if they were offered a role within an organization that had a good reputation. As a result, a strong brand can improve cost per hire by up to 50%.
Moreover, Glassdoor found that the benefits of a powerful employer brand extended beyond recruitment; consider that nearly 30% of candidates have resigned within the first 90 days of starting a role, citing misalignment between the employer and their employer brand. Conversely, organizations that actively invest in employer brand improve their turnover by as much as 28%.
At PeopleScout, we pride ourselves on our ability to partner with clients to hire top talent by building a strategic talent acquisition architecture with employer branding at its heart. So, in this article, we present a real-world example of how PeopleScout’s expert team of talent advisors provided employer branding guidance and delivered a recruitment marketing strategy for the campaign that attracted, engaged and hired the best talent for multinational technology conglomerate Vodafone.
Changing Minds
When an organization’s brand is a household name, there’s often an overlap in sentiment between consumer and employer brand in the minds of the public—an association that can sometimes come with unforeseen complications. This was the case for PeopleScout client Vodafone. Its reputation among the UK public was one of a mobile phone retailer and nothing else—a perception that hurt the organization’s ability to become an employer of choice among young people.
However, behind that perception, Vodafone is a multifaceted innovator in the technology and communications industry with a mission and purpose to make the future a better place. With this knowledge, it was up to PeopleScout’s team to reshape Vodafone’s employer brand in the minds of its target demographic: Newly graduated job-seekers who shared the company’s passion for improving communities and the lives of their customers.
Hiring with Purpose
In employer branding, purpose is the key to unlocking the way that an employer engages with job-seekers. Now, more than ever, job-seekers want more from their employer; they want to feel a sense of belonging and that the work they do has meaning and provides a sense of personal development. In fact, according to research from Blue Beyond Consulting of knowledge workers aged 45 and younger, 52% said they would quit their jobs if their employers’ values didn’t align with their own.
Notably, Vodafone’s future hiring strategy was focused as much on purpose as it was on placing great talent in the right roles. Its purpose was to address high levels of youth unemployment head on by committing to hire up to 100,000 young job-seekers with digital workplace experience. Then, Vodafone set another ambitious goal: To support the development of digital skills in 10 million young people, given that one in five candidates in their target demographic stated that they felt underprepared for the digital economy.
To help Vodafone meet its bold vision of the future, PeopleScout needed to craft an employer brand with multigenerational appeal to attract candidates from Millennials to Gen Z and beyond. Ideally, these candidates are achievers with ambitions beyond working in mobile phone retail. As such, Vodafone’s employer brand campaign had to engage imaginations and change its audiences’ perceptions by presenting itself as a major tech company—not a retailer—and by building its reputation as a youth employer of choice for ambitious job-seekers.
Audience Insights: Leveraging Social Media to Reach the Right Audience
For Vodafone, we found that 90.4% of the brand’s target audience regularly used social media. On top of this, 91% of all social media users accessed channels via their mobile devices. With this in mind, we developed a mobile-first, social media-friendly campaign. Additionally, further research showed us that many students with the right background and personal qualifications didn’t apply due to a lack of confidence. Therefore, we needed a message that was bold, relatable and empowering.
Meanwhile, just as important as the audience insights were the strategic considerations. Candidates are also customers; when buying products, they expect a streamlined, user-friendly, friction-free process. And now, they have the same expectation when making career decisions. So, we made every touchpoint (especially applying) as slick and easy as possible.
Granted, no contemporary attraction approach can be just about advertising; long-term connections are far more powerful. So, central to our strategy was helping Vodafone engage in conversations, initiatives and support with high-potential university students throughout their full university lifecycle. In short, the strategy was to start on day one, not year three.
The Core Message: #GENERATIONPOSSIBLE
There are a variety of strategies you can employ to share your employer brand with candidates, but storytelling is one of the most powerful. From career sites to job-search platforms, there are plenty of opportunities to tell interesting, unique stories that capture the attention of job-seekers and entice them to apply. But, knowing exactly what stories to tell—and how to tell them—is not always easy.
So, our message for Vodafone’s campaign aimed to capture the spirit of change and possibility, as well as draw on the opportunity for young people to have an influence on the world for the better. For instance, the visual elements of the campaign approach used photography that reflected our target audience, combined with bold headline statements. Similarly, social and site content featured current grads and interns sharing their advice for the next generation of Vodafone employees.
Campaign Highlights:
A six-month social media strategy targeted to mobile users
A #GenerationPossible video at the heart of the campaign
A campaign matrix of 104 social posts with 20 mini videos/GIFs
Supporting Executions
Our research identified that our target audience felt like they weren’t good enough or lacked the skills to take on these roles. So, we created a series of videos featuring current Vodafone graduate recruits and interns. These videos explored Vodafone life, wellbeing, social responsibility, innovation, assessment center and other advice to help prepare candidates for the interview process.
Hiring Strategies:Spreading the Employer Brand Message
Apart from social media, we also organized a series of 41 on-campus events to connect students directly with Vodafone employees. We also carefully targeted campuses with the highest female-to-male ratios for tech degrees as a way to help increase female applications.
Results
The campaign comfortably exceeded Vodafone’s expectations:
Vodafone generated more than 16,000 applications, performing 60% above its targets.
PeopleScout’s campaign helped improve diversity, increasing female applicants by 23%.
We increased Instagram post impressions by 89.3% (post-campaign vs. pre-campaign).
Social media drove strong engagement and provided more than 1.5 million Facebook impressions, as well as 6.8 million impressions on organic posts on LinkedIn.
PeopleScout also deployed a hyper-targeted paid Facebook campaign that produced 390,510 impressions and 2,541 clicks—all from the audience we wanted to target.
These numbers are backed up by audience sentiment: We significantly improved Vodafone’s reputation as an employer, jumping 27 places in the TT100 rankings. As a result of this success, Vodafone also asked us to develop the concept for its apprentice campaign audience and roll it out through a new assessment process design.
Let’s be honest, you won’t often find me with my head in a copy of Psychology Today. But I’m increasingly interested in how people engage with organisations and brands in the current world.
So I found an article called “Friendology: The Science of Friendship” in Psychology Today which is a worthwhile read. Research has found that the best and longest friendships are those formed between people who are the most similar in values and behaviour.
In other words, when it comes to friendships, opposites do not attract.
These similarities of personality are most notable in four specific areas found in all strong friendships:
Pleasure in each other’s company
Reciprocity
Mutual respect and trust
Social or political benefit
Whilst relationships between employers and their existing and potential staff are not the same as those between two friends, we can incorporate these pillars into our candidate attraction and employee experience strategy.
Pleasure in Each Other’s Company
For businesses, this translates into the total employee experience, including how well you engage and communicate with existing and potential employees.
Before they give their loyalty, they are looking for a more personal connection and to know that they are heard. Do you have the channels and mechanisms in place to capture ideas and feedback on an ongoing basis – not just an annual survey? And how consistently do you act on it?
Reciprocity
Reciprocity simply means that there is a perceived fair exchange of value between the brand and employee.
It’s your EVP – ‘the deal’ – and ensuring that it’s fair, authentic and compelling will go a long way in supporting your retention goals.
Mutual Respect and Trust
Trust is a foundational aspect of any long-term relationship, regardless of whether it is among groups of people or between businesses and their staff. Trust begins with transparency and honesty in communications. Employers must be honest about their business practices and deliver on their promises.
Social or Political Benefit
We all want to be friends with popular, inspiring people who reflect well on us. Anyone hiring graduates or apprentices will recognise that organisational culture and purpose are increasingly important to potential hires.
According to Bright Network, 89% of students think about an employer’s commitment to DE&I before applying and 91% think about their commitment to employees’ mental wellbeing. We want to be associated with a brand that is a good reflection on us. This is especially true for Millennials, who rank a company’s reflection on them as their highest criteria for brand loyalty.
At PeopleScout APAC we are committed to providing you with information to help guide you on your D&I journey. We aim to cover a wide range of D&I topics, including issues regarding BIPOC, the LGBTQ+ community, gender gaps, people with disabilities and more. In this article, we cover the history and importance of NAIDOC Week and offer advice and recommendations for employers looking to build more inclusive workplaces for First Nations peoples.
Each year in Australia, NAIDOC Week is observed in July to recognise the contributions of the First Nations and Torres Strait Islander communities to history and achievements of Australia. It’s an occasion to celebrate the oldest, continuous living cultures on Earth.
NAIDOC Week takes its name from the National Aborigines and Islanders Day Observance Committee. The annual celebration stems from The Day of Mourning, which was first held as a protest to Australia Day on 26 January 1938, the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the First Fleet, marking the beginning of the colonisation of Australia. Aboriginal Australian were protesting the mistreatment of their ancestors and the seizure of land and resources from the First Nations peoples. It became an annual tradition and evolved into a week-long event in 1975 resulting in NAIDOC Week.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples have a rich and ancient history, and each person brings their unique views and experiences to the workforce. Creating career opportunities for First Nations peoples in integral to a workplace diversity and inclusion (D&I) program. In this article, we’ll provide an overview of the First Nations peoples, discuss the challenges these Australians are facing in the workplace and share actionable strategies your organisation can leverage to create opportunities for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers.
Who are First Nations Australians?
“First Nations Australians”, is a general term that includes two distinct cultural groups—Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Within these groups sits a wide array nations, islands, tribes, clans and communities, each with their own culture, language and beliefs.
Australia’s First Peoples cultures developed over 70,000 years on the continent now known as Australia, making them the world’s oldest living cultures. Aboriginal peoples come from all regions of Australia. Torres Strait Islanders originate from a group of 200 islands off the northern tip of Queensland, south of Papua New Guinea. Each Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander person will have their own specific culture and ancestral homeland with which they identify.
A Brief History of Oppression of Australia’s First Peoples
Australia was originally founded as a penal colony for Britain. On 26 January 1788, a fleet of 11 British ships carrying 700 convicts arrived at the colony to establish an agricultural work camp.
Aboriginal populations were subjected to forced labour and eventually segregated. As recently as the 1970s, Aboriginal children were forcibly removed from their families by Australian Federal and State agencies and put into institutions or placed with white families in a misguided attempt to assimilate them into white society. In addition to abuse and neglect, these children were deprived of learning their oral culture as parents were unable to pass down their traditions to these Stolen Generations—and much has been lost.
In 1967, Aboriginal peoples were granted citizenship, which started a journey of slow progress towards reconciliation in Australia. With unanimous support from Parliament, the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation was established in 1991 to raise awareness of the history of the treatment of First Nations peoples in Australia. Today, the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) have set out ambitious targets to remedy the disadvantages they now face as a result historical harm.
First Nations Peoples in the Workplace
The Closing the Gap strategy was created 2008 to address six major areas of improvement relating to health, education and employment. The 2020 Closing the Gap report, shows big strides made around education. While still lower than non-Indigenous Australians, 66% of First Nations Australians aged 20-24 years have completed a Year 12 level of education or higher—up 21% from a decade ago.
However, despite educational advancements, First Nations people remain largely underrepresented in the workplace. In 2018, the employment rate of Aboriginal and Torres Islander peoples was around 49% compared to around 75% for non-Indigenous Australians. Unfortunately, not much improvement has been made over the last 10 years with just 0.9% growth in the employment rate for Indigenous Australians.
To counteract these concerning trends, many organisations are now executing against a Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), which sets out how they will contribute to reconciliation with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples and creating meaningful opportunities for them. An important part of a successful RAP is a dedicated strategy for recruitment of First Nations peoples.
“Reconciliation isn’t a single moment or place in time. It’s lots of small, consistent steps, some big strides, and sometimes unfortunate backwards steps …”
Karen Mundine, Chief Executive Officer, Reconciliation Australia
Strategies for Improving First Nations Talent Acquisition Outcomes
Although a small talent pool, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander workers can add huge value to your organisation. Increasing the number of Indigenous Australians in your workforce will help you reflect your community and increase your understanding of your cross-cultural customer base. Focusing on Indigenous employment can open up additional business opportunities—including government contracts—and aid in the expansion your revenue potential.
At PeopleScout, we have developed this five-pillar approach to a First Nations resourcing strategy:
1. Labour Market Insights
Your strategy should start with developing a deep understanding of your First Nations target audience. Conduct labour market research in all regions in which you’re hiring to understand the size of the talent pool and gain insight into current employers and role types and common skills.
Working with a First Nations resourcing consultant can help you understand the drivers and motivators of your First Nations audiences. Combine this with demographic data to create a talent persona that informs your recruitment marketing messages so they resonate with First Nations talent.
2. Community & Stakeholder Engagement
Start by communicating with indigenous leaders and educating your recruitment partners—to drive accountability and positive outcomes for any Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) you have in place and how talent acquisition fits in. This is also a good time to ensure all your sourcers and recruiters have completed cultural awareness training. You should also share the labour market insights you gathered so they have a clear understanding of the skill sets that exist within the First Nations communities and how they map to your business.
Once you’ve informed your internal stakeholders, it’s time to identify groups within you’re the First Nations community and start establishing relationships. These could include schools and universities (and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander student groups), community groups, social media groups and more. This will help build awareness of your organisation and lay the foundation for referrals to your roles.
3. Attraction
Start by reviewing your existing employer value proposition (EVP) to ensure it’s relevant to a First Nations audience. It’s important at this stage to have a feedback session with your existing First Nations employees or consultants to further develop your employer brand messaging to understand cultural sensitivities in a respectful way that values indigenous knowledge and practices.
Then, update your careers page and any recruitment marketing assets and creative, if needed. You may also consider creating a dedicated First Nations career page. Using these materials, you can actively promote your positions to the community groups with which you’ve been engaging.
4. Assessment & Selection
This pillar is all about ensuring more First Nations candidates progress through each stage of the recruitment process to ultimately increase hires.
It’s crucial to partner with your hiring managers to ensure they’re aligned with your diversity hiring targets and how your organisation’s RAP might impact their business unit. You should also present them with your labour market insights which will be the basis of an important conversation around required skills within the available talent pool. Your recruiters and hiring managers should agree on where there is flexibility within the technical capabilities for each role—what can be developed on the job versus what skills they need to have from the start in order to be successful. Then, when reviewing candidates and applicants, you can view them through the lens of transferrable skills that an individual can bring to the role—not strictly for exact experience.
The assessment and selection stage of the recruitment process can often be where most roadblocks lurk for First Nations candidates, so it’s important to assess your candidate experience to root out anything that may negatively impact Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander candidates. Document any recruitment process changes and present these guidelines to hiring managers.
As they move through your recruitment process, it’s important to gather feedback from First Nations candidates. Candidate NPS is a good way to gauge the experience of Indigenous candidates versus non-Indigenous and uncover any areas for improvement. Share this data amongst recruiters and hiring managers and adjust as needed to ensure ongoing success.
5. Reporting & Analytics
No First Nations talent acquisition strategy or RAP will be successful without measurement and regular reporting on progress.
The first step here is to define your success measures. These may include:
Level of interest / number of applicants from First Nations peoples
Candidate source (can help you determine if certain community relationships need more attention and inform your recruitment marketing campaigns)
Candidate quality
Pipeline data showing the number First Nations candidates at each stage of the recruitment process
Number of First Nations people hired
Retention rates
The ability to report on these metrics may require you to evaluate your recruitment analytics technology and upgrade your tech stack if needed. Look for a tool that lets you build an RAP dashboard that included modules that show data specific to your First Nations recruitment process.
As you build your dashboards and determine what to include, think about which stakeholders within your business should see the data and what they should see. Your C-suite, talent acquisition teams and hiring managers will all have different needs and concerns. Regularly analysing this data and trends over time will go a long way to ensure you achieve your First Nations recruitment outcomes.
First Nations Peoples & Workplace Diversity
To stay competitive in today’s challenging recruitment landscape, diversity and inclusion must be at the core of your talent strategy. When candidates and customers see diversity within your business—including First Nations employees—they’re more likely to invest their time and resource in your organisation. By celebrating the cultures of First Nations peoples and creating opportunities for them to thrive, you can foster long-term reconciliation and respect for this diverse talent pool—for NAIDOC Week and beyond.
[On-Demand] How to Build a Compelling Talent Attraction Strategy
As employers compete to attract the best people, talent acquisition specialists need to use everything at their disposal to ensure their efforts are efficient and successful.
The days of “post and pray” are behind us; HR and recruitment professionals are facing an increasingly complex recruitment market that means they have to do much more than simply advertise their vacancies.
This Personnel Today webinar, in association with PeopleScout, helps you build a stronger employer brand, underpinned by a clear employee value proposition, to enable your organisation to nurture a reliable talent pipeline where the best candidates seek you out.
Personnel Today editor Rob Moss is joined by Robert Peasnell, deputy managing director of PeopleScout, and Paula Simmons, director of employer brand and communications strategy at TMP Worldwide, together with an expert panel of talent acquisition professionals.
Watch now to learn:
How to create innovative attraction campaigns that work
Strategies for HR and recruitment in a candidate led-market
How to maintain goals around diversity in a challenging labour market
The best ways to encourage candidate advocacy, and
How to accurately portray your organisation to the right audience
I’ve tried to hide from the inevitable and deeply wanted to write about anything other than the ONS’s recent UK Labour Market overview for fear of adding to the pervading gloom of economic news. But as a recruitment professional, and as a worker, the findings are too stark and too significant to ignore.
The main impact is for employees, not employers, with a grim picture of pay in real terms falling at its fastest rate in over a decade as the cost-of-living crisis bites. This might lead to churn as those in work seek higher paying opportunities to maintain, not improve, their lifestyles. And they might well have choice—a record number of job vacancies have been recorded (again) in the UK. It is certainly a challenge to businesses that, while “pay is growing strongly as companies seek to attract people to work for them,” salaries are still falling well behind rates of inflation, putting ever more pressure on investment.
Higher Salaries Won’t Fix the UK’s Talent Shortages
It will be very difficult to use salaries alone to mitigate against the lack of supply the UK jobs market is seeing. The current position is indeed incredibly tight and exacerbated by ever increasing levels of economic inactivity: a “missing million” from the workforce. I’ve been guilty of viewing this as being driven by a positive choice to work less for lifestyle reasons (which does happen), so the view here of (rising, long term) ill-health keeping people from work was especially sobering.
What’s next? Follow the long-term graphs, and you’ll see repeatedly that economic slowdown = reduction in job vacancies.
It seems obvious that we can expect that again—an overall cooling of the job market as businesses reduce spend towards the end of the year. Does that mean recruitment will get easier? In some cases, yes: but the longer-term picture also shows critical talent shortages sticking around, driven by economic and demographic factors. Without an emphasis on connecting more people with work through education, training, and flexible support, recruitment efforts (and economic growth) will fall short.
This is what Peter Bendor-Samuel of Everest Group calls, “the cow behind the pig”: the bigger long-term challenge that can’t be ignored while digesting the smaller, short term one (for this analogy to work you have to imagine you are a python—or just read Peter’s blog it’s very good).
White knuckling the short-term in the hope that fewer people will be needed is a complacent talent strategy, where a winning one means a continued focus and investment in finding and keeping outstanding talent. Smart organisations must hold that course as much as possible in the face of slowdown, recession, stagflation and other economic headwinds.
By Sian Blurton, Client Relationship Director, EMEA
I was lucky enough to spend the past 4.5 years of my career in Dubai. During this time, I embraced a different culture, immersed myself in understanding and educating myself around the Islamic faith and its celebrations. I would like to take this opportunity to thank my Muslim colleagues and their families for the kindness shown to me during my time as an expat.
Our different faiths had the outcome inclusivity for all.
A generosity of spirit is displayed during Ramadan in the Muslim world. I had the honour and pleasure to work on food bank distribution for those less fortunate, and witnessed my Muslim colleagues and friends give money and gifts to those less fortunate.
Fasting during the month of Ramadan is not about disappointment or deprivation. It is a form of discipline, and the opportunity to achieve clarity and a deeper connection with one’s faith.
Ramadan is a time of reflection. Some may choose to use the month to start anew. Some make resolutions to be kinder. Ramadan is all about being the best YOU possible. something I know I have learnt from.
In addition, I highly recommend attending the amazing Iftar, the meal in which Muslims break their fast at sunset, with friends.
To all my Muslim friends and colleagues across the world, when Ramadan commences tomorrow on 2 April, I will be thinking of you, remembering all you taught me about Ramadan, and thanking you for the love and kindness you have shown. We all should take time to reflect, be humble and be the best versions of ourselves that we can be.
For job seekers this is often good news. There are more roles available, with higher salaries and greater flexibility (especially in relation to remote working), plus there’s an emphasis on training, upskilling and creating a great working culture. Candidates can sit back and take their pick—after all, they are the ones in demand. What employers need is more job seekers—and it’s entirely possible that they can proactively increase that supply.
Talent Acquisition Has New Rules
McKinsey calls this the “New Talent Game.” Employers are now competing not just with each other, but with the wider array of work experiences on offer—not to mention locations. I’m based in Bristol, and for half a decade all my people were too. Now I am nabbing talent from other regions of the UK. Plus, people are increasingly making the (often temporary) decision not to work at all—to, as George Michael would have worn it, CHOOSE LIFE.
How do you win in that context? Organisations must redefine their attraction and recruitment strategies and build an employer value proposition (EVP) that takes employees’ whole lives into account and makes work a more positive choice. What is clear is those candidates are only coming back on their terms: workplace flexibility, adequate compensation and reasonable expectations about performance.
Winning with RPO on Your Side
As a leading, global talent partner for a diverse range of businesses, PeopleScout’s RPO solutions have long been designed to amplify employer brands with a recruitment approach that focuses on an enhanced candidate experience. The missing talent can be won by placing the employee experience at the heart of your talent strategy, and I’m proud to say in Q1 2022 we are re-delivering hundreds of employees each month into the consumer and retail sectors for our client partners in the UK, with fulfilment trending positively each month.
It hasn’t been easy – but we are playing the New Talent Game to win.
We all love a pithy phrase. But whilst the ‘great resignation’ neatly captures what all employers are experiencing currently—1.3 million vacancies in the UK, 33% of employees allegedly planning to look for a new job in 2022 and 26% having already called recruiters or shared their CVs online—it explains the symptom, not the cause.
At PeopleScout, we’re seeing a fundamental shift happening in how people are reflecting on their lives and work as the COVID-19 pandemic endures into 2022. Conversations with employees across all ages and sectors indicate that people have developed a new sense of awareness and worth for themselves and the world around them. This is prompting them to demand more personal value and purpose from both life and work.
Changing Employee Expectations
In one study, 65% of participants said the pandemic had made them rethink the place that work should have in their life, and 56% said it made them want to contribute more to society.
Smart employers will acknowledge this truth and respond with a more human and purpose-driven employment offers.
Today’s REC/KPMG report on UK jobs, highlights the ongoing pressure on salaries with wage inflation at it’s highest for mover 20 plus years. However, rather than just paying staff more, employers need to develop a more human employer value proposition (EVP).
The era of the employment contract, in which a worker provided services purely in exchange for monetary compensation, is over. Employees want organisations to recognise their value and provide value back to them on a human level. Monetary compensation is important for surviving, but deeper relationships, a strong sense of community and purpose-driven work are essential to thriving.
This is the value that employees expect their employers to provide.
Is your EVP based on legacy conditions and thinking? Or does it deliver the personal value and sense of purpose demanded by a post-pandemic workforce?
Delivering Cost Savings and a Healthy Return on Investment for a Rural Healthcare System
A major rural healthcare system turned to PeopleScout for technology-powered healthcare RPO enhanced by a recruitment marketing campaign, resulting in a $4+ million cost savings.
77%reduction in nursing recruitment spend, totaling $4+ million in savings to date
97%new hire retention
98%hiring leader satisfaction score
Situation
This healthcare provider was having trouble sourcing and hiring for nursing roles in North Dakota, a rural state heavily impacted by ongoing nursing shortages, forcing the client to rely on travel nurse staffing providers to deliver talent to support rural healthcare recruitment. The reliance on these staffing providers proved expensive, with the client paying an average of $73 an hour per locum nurse in contrast to paying $34 an hour on average per full-time nurse. Traveling nurses also work on 13-week contracts, meaning that the client receives temporary talent and less value for their recruitment spend.
To improve talent acquisition costs and attract hard-to-hire candidates, the client needed a full-cycle healthcare RPO partner that could streamline the hiring process and build a strong recruitment marketing program. PeopleScout’s RPO program started with nursing hires and now spans 90% of the client’s clinical and non-clinical hiring, including aides, clerical workers, interns, leadership positions, RNs, LPNs, professional services, technical roles and therapists.
Solution
Build a Local Recruiting Team
PeopleScout built a local recruiting team balanced with virtual support. This enables PeopleScout to work directly with the client on-site with the increased efficiency of a virtual team.
Develop Improved Employer Branding and Location Branding
PeopleScout partnered with the client to understand their employer value proposition and employer brand and then built out recruitment marketing materials to showcase the strong culture and cutting-edge medical facility. The recruitment marketing campaign also included messaging on the benefits of working in the rural area, like the strong university presence, short commute, low crime and sense of community.
Target Recent Graduates
The client partnered with PeopleScout to focus their efforts on hiring recent graduates from local universities. This helped the client get ahead of the competition and train new employees in their RN Residency Program.
Implementing Hiring Bonuses
PeopleScout advised the client to implement a $10,000 hiring bonus for new nurses to ensure their employment offers were competitive based on industry data and research.
Implementation of Affinix and Streamlining Recruiting Processes
PeopleScout implemented our proprietary total talent suite, Affinix® which helped the client streamline recruiting processes through tools that supported management of direct sourcing, panel interviewing and an expedited offer process—decreasing time-to-fill rates.
Results
Cost Savings
After implementing PeopleScout’s full-cycle healthcare talent acquisition solution, the client reduced its nursing recruitment spend by 77%, totaling $4+ million in savings to date.
Lowest Nurse Vacancy Rate
PeopleScout helped the client achieve their lowest nurse vacancy rate ever — 1.3%. The client also achieved a 136% increase in hiring new graduate registered nurses. The client reduced its use of traveling nurses by 68%, and for the first time, was able to hire nurses willing to relocate for the position.
Process Improvement
With PeopleScout’s expertise, the client achieved 97% new hire retention and 98% hiring leader satisfaction scores for exceptional performance. The client was so impressed with PeopleScout’s results hiring nurses that the client now outsources 90% of their hiring to PeopleScout.
Enhanced Employer Branding
PeopleScout leveraged the client’s strong employer value proposition and was able to partner with the healthcare provider to create an enhanced suite of employer branding materials that feature real employees. PeopleScout also used a comprehensive approach to reach candidates, including social media, campus recruiting and paid search ads.
Client Feedback
“We are so impressed with this partnership, and it’s a significant improvement from our past recruitment practices. We feel so confident working with a partner who ‘gets it,’ and we are excited about the quality of our candidate pool.”
Client Feedback
“Out of the three nursing jobs I have obtained in the past, this was by far the most professional and friendly hiring process that I have been through. It was a pleasant change.”
New Hire Feedback
At a Glance
COMPANY Rural healthcare system
INDUSTRY Healthcare
PEOPLESCOUT SOLUTIONS Recruitment Process Outsourcing, Talent Advisory, Affinix
ABOUT THE CLIENT This American nonprofit healthcare system has served portions of the Midwest for more than 130 years. It employs over 3,500 health professionals and support staff.
