Turn your Recruitment Marketing Activities from Blah to Irresistibly Effective

Does any of this sound familiar?

The recruiting Manager sends a recruitment request to HR. This is followed by an email expressing the dire need and urgency for the position to be filled – like yesterday. Seriously! Really? Stress!HR checks the organisation chart to confirm vacancy. Vacancy confirmed.HR reviews manning guide to confirm compensation range for role and checks if there is any funds left in the budget to advertise.Budget remains. Barely. It has been slashed and ear-marked for reallocation. Hurry, spend budget or lose it.If no budget, an email plea from HR to Finance to open up the wallet swiftly follows.Email response from Finance to HR contains phrases like; cost centre, budget rationale required, do more with less and the need for a creative approach. Miniscule budget approved. Seriously! Really? Stress!HR checks the condition of the Job Description.Good grief! An awful realisation dawns. More Stress! That logo was replaced 3 years ago in the last company rebranding campaign! Get new logo from Marketing.Carry out a quick cosmetic update of JD. Send to recruiting Manager for input and sign off.No time - need a template. Cut and paste refreshed role profile specification and vacancy details into the last recruitment ad used. Recruitment ad is now ready to go live. Phew!Now to keep fingers crossed and pray that some decent candidates apply.There has got to be a better way…

Get Noticed Peacock Style

Take a moment to ponder and ask yourself these 3 questions.1. Do you want to grab the attention of your desired candidate(s) who share the same values as your organisation and repel those that don’t?2. Do you need to find individuals who possess the skills and experience needed by your organisation?3. Are you serious about turning your recruitment marketing activities from blah to irresistibly effective?If you answered YES to any of the questions, here are 2 attention-grabbing tips inspired by the Peacock – to get you on the road to stellar hiring.If you commit to following these steps you will be strutting your stuff, flashing your tail feathers and grabbing the attention of your target market in short order. 1. Attract AND Fascinate: Recently, I took The Fascination Advantage® assessment. I was blown away! Check it out for yourself. Take the quick test and find out your ‘Archetype’. Fascinating stuff.I have used personality tests (e.g. Myers-Briggs and SHL) many times in recruitment campaigns.  I have also taken the tests myself. But this test demands you open your mind and move to a different headspace.Sally Hogshead has turned personality testing inside out. “This test doesn’t measure how you see the world... but how the world sees you.”Brainpoke Alert!This got me thinking.Hiring processes typically focus on an inside-out approach. The organisation starts by reflecting its own understanding of its brand image onto its target (external) market. As a result, recruitment marketing material may contain (potentially erroneous) assumptions of ‘employer of choice’ status or similar aspired-to accolades.In reality, candidates don’t give a !HOOT! how your organisation sees itself.Your desired candidates’ (or individuals they trust and follow) perception and experience of your employer brand is THE reality to which recruiters must pay attention.Invest time, energy and budget to understand your target market’s feelings towards your employer brand. Then you will be able to strengthen the magnetic pull and relevance of your employment offer to 1^st choice candidates. Start with the outside-in approach to attract and fascinate.2. Mind the Brand Perception - Reality Gap: Here are some more reasons to take an outside-in approach. Without regular honest assessment of your brand’s perception and value amongst the target candidate market, you open your recruitment efforts to the risk of financial and reputational nightmares.I am sure you have either heard of or experienced disastrous recruitment campaigns. E.g.

• Question: “Who hired that psychopathic Narcissist?”
• It cost US$5000 to hire and US$35,000 (and escalating) to exit the bad hire from the organisation.
• Your last recruitment attracted the desperate and the inappropriate.
• Your recruitment campaign launched with a bang! All you heard was the sound of crickets instead of the steady ping of fabulous candidate applications hitting your inbox.

Don’t wait! Set aside a budget to regularly carry out assessments of your employee community.

• Inside-out (e.g. Employee Engagement Surveys, Exit Interviews and Performance Evaluations etc.)

• Outside-in (surveying your target candidate’s feelings and opinions of your employer brand through focus groups, online perception questionnaires etc.)

N.B. With the exception of performance evaluations, I recommend using a reputable third party to administer and report evaluation results.  This will go some way in capturing more robust and useful data.Allocate time (don’t scrimp on this) to address issues negatively impacting your organisation’s ability to hire and retain ‘right-fit’ talent.Use this knowledge to craft benefits and create the employment experience relevant to your business and appealing to your employee community.Following these 2 steps will set you on the path to creating an irresistible Employee Value Proposition (EVP). Closely aligned with your Employer Brand, your EVP specifically describes the features and appeal of working for your organisation.See you next week down The HR Rabbit Hole for more on EVPs and other Peacock-inspired seductive tips to turn your Recruitment Marketing activities from blah to irresistibly effective.  Until then…Strut your stuff and shake your jewelled-hued EVP tail feathers. Mesmerise your target market and attract a tribe following.

Shake responsibly, savvy Recruiter!