3 Ways To Kickstart Candidate Flow
No Candidate Flow?
Your supervisor is ringing you up saying, “We need widget-makers on night shift bad! We got nothing coming in and more just left!” You promise to see what you can do even though you’re not sure where to get more widgeteers. You have to find them somewhere–but where? Indeed? Facebook? Craigslist? LinkedIn? How much will you spend? How much can you spend? Do you even have an ad that works?
Kickstarting candidate flow from nothing can be tough. And right now everyone is going through it. All you know is that your neck is on the line, because you just said that you’ll find them and you need a plan–fast.
Here are the 3 things you can do immediately to find candidate flow:
1. Rewrite Your Ad
You can fix a lot of candidate flow problems by improving your ads. This is where we start with every new HireBoom! client. Remember your ads have to
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- Get Found
- Stand Out
- Clearly Communicate
- Inspire Action
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When it comes to writing ads that get found, realize that job boards are nothing more than search engines. Just like you turn to Google to search for products, services, and information; people turn to sites like Indeed, Monster, and Glassdoor to find job opportunities. And, just like with Google, those people type in certain keywords to find what they want. You need to find out what those words are and write them into your job ads.
There’s A Tool For That
You need to use a tool in Indeed called Hiring Insights. It allows you to learn what the most popular keywords are for each job. Then you need to carefully place those words into the ad in just the right spots to get the system to show your ads effectively. We do this all the time when we write job ads for our clients.
Make ‘Em Stand Out
To write ads that stand out, you need do things like ask questions designed to appeal to the candidate’s personal values. You can also highlight certain text within the ad to make the main ideas pop. You can even use quotes from other satisfied employees or testimonies from happy customers. The important thing is to make your ads different from those of your competitors.
As for clearly communicating, it’s all about simple structure and good organization. This is where you should use headings to break up the visual look of the ad and divide it into sections so candidates can easily find the information that they want. Use short paragraphs and direct sentences written in active voice to keep the reader’s attention. List things using bullet points making it easy to quickly digest the content. And, most of all, make sure that the ad clearly communicates the responsibilities, requirements, and benefits associated with the job.
Don’t Just Inform – Inspire!
Finally, inspire action by using lots of verbs, writing directly to the candidate, and giving simple specific instructions for responding. Remember, the difference between a job posting and a job ad is that a job posting simply informs the reader that there is an opening. A job ad inspires him or her to take action and apply.
There’s a lot that goes into writing an effective job ad and if your competitors have candidate flow, it’s because they’re doing these things. You can compete, but you need well-researched, well-written ads to do it. If you’re interested, we’d love to help you create the kind of ads that deliver the flow you need. Just complete the form below and we’ll call you to talk about it.
Complete this form and we’ll contact you to see how we can help.
2. Raise Your Budget
In the current economy and job market it’s safe to say that anyone who has candidate flow is paying more for it now than they ever have before. This means that a few things are true.
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- There’s no such thing as effective, free job ads right now.
- You need to know how much to spend.
- You need to know where to spend it.
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I remember the good old days when we could throw up a freebie on Indeed or our company Facebook page and get applicants. When we did spend, it was $25 on Craiglist or just a bit more on Snag-A-Job and we would get 30 days out of that little gem. Now we’re shelling out $35 – $50 per job per day on Indeed and even more on Facebook as we mine for a steady trickle of candidate flow.
Let’s face it, the market for willing workers is tough and, just like with customers on the marketing side of our businesses, the company who can afford to pay the most to acquire a candidate wins. Even if you’re not the one shelling out the biggest bucks, you better believe that you’ll be paying more than you thought for any dependable flow of applicants.
How Much Is Enough?
With your ad spend being so critical to your recruiting success, it’s important to know how much is enough. Guessing could quickly break your budget and leave you with no leads and no lettuce. So how much is enough? That depends upon a collection of factors–the main one being what your competitors are paying in your area for the same job ad.
Mobile vs Desktop
Another factor is where your audience needs to see your ad. Mobile impressions are often more expensive than desktop ones. If your potential hires are mainly mobile users, you’ll be paying more for your ad to show up where they like to see them. HireBoom! clients get the benefit of our analytics tools to learn about their ad audiences and their competitors. This information allows us to recommend budgets that yield effective results.
Were You Spend Matters
Where you spend your ad dollars is every bit as important as knowing how much to spend. Each job ad has a unique audience with unique preferences. Some like to only see job ads on job boards when they are in the mood to shop for employment opportunities. Others will respond to an ad on Facebook, LikedIn, or other social media if it’s done well and properly placed with a compelling message.
Most of the time, a job ad campaign is a combination of ads, budgets, and platforms used to create the necessary flow of applicants. At HireBoom! we build these every day to help our clients get the absolute most out of their job marketing. Think about it. If you knew you had an ad that would show up, knew how much to spend so you didn’t waste money, and knew exactly where to run that ad so you didn’t waste time, how could you lose?
3. Remove Barriers To Entry
The third thing you can do to kickstart your candidate flow is remove barriers to entry. So many job marketing efforts fail, because they never manage to get out of their own way. It does no good to write a great ad, spend enough to get it found, and place it on all the right platforms and then ask applicants to fill out 27 unnecessary questions on the application form.
Besides unnecessary application questions, there are lots of barriers to entry. Asking for too much information on a contact form, complicated screening assessments, needless requests for demographic information, even requiring references and resumes can get in the way sometimes. Remember, we’re not talking about refining existing flow, we’re talking about getting flow where there is none.
Just The Facts
You may find that you need to strip your process down to just name, email, and phone number. That’s it. That’s all you need to get them in touch with a human being anyway. And that’s the number one goal. Once someone has clicked the apply button and submitted that basic information, get them in touch with a live human being as fast as possible!
Speed Matters
The faster you connect an applicant to a living, breathing person within your company, the more successful you will be. That connection is the single most important factor in getting the applicant to show up for an interview, so remove every possible barrier to entry in order to make that happen.
It Won’t Be Like This Forever
You won’t have to work this lean forever. Sooner or later things will return to a more normal state. However, desperate times call for desperate measures. So, if you’re in need of immediate flow and you would like some help, use the form on this page and reach out to us here at HireBoom! We’ll make it easy. We’ll help you improve your ads. We’ll tell you how much you need to spend and where to spend it. And we can examine your intake process and recommend where you can remove barriers to entry.
Finding flow is not rocket science, but there is a fair amount of science involved. There’s also a ton of different important skills from data analysis to graphic design to ad writing and more. This is what we do for HireBoom! clients in lots of different industries every day. We want to help you too! So, what are you waiting for? C’mon, reach out now!
Talk Soon.