3 Tips to Engage Your Applicants During the Hiring Process

Any decent recruiter knows that it is critical to have an active pool from which to source candidates for jobs, but that doesn’t just mean a large number of any past job applicants. A truly good applicant pool includes applicants that are interested in future positions with your organization and have the qualifications required. Here is an overview of three tips to engage your applicants throughout the recruiting and selection process.

Have relevant and diverse content on your careers site

Maintaining a company careers site with current and RELEVANT job-related and company-culture inspired content will help attract top talent. Your website or career page may be your first impression with the applicant…so make sure it’s a positive and informative experience! This effort shows potential future employees that you are serious about your industry and your team, and it can provide compelling information to elusive passive job seekers who are just dipping their toe into the pool and contemplating job transition.

Moreover, feature this information in various forms and locations:

• Use video to explain the hiring process and to highlight company culture-boosting events over the past year. Consider using a series of Vine videos to spotlight quick quips in the form of testimonials from employees about their work experiences.
• Have everyone that touches the hiring process write blogs about what to expect from employment at your organization and the types of characteristics the company is seeking in its star players.
• Social media can be used to show your applicants you are up to date with business trends (using hashtags, embedding videos from YouTube and/or having a Jobs app right within your company Facebook page) to keep your employment image fresh and exciting!
• And…a picture is worth a thousand words! Illustrate what it means to work at your company by using rich, colorful images throughout your career site and job listings.

Acknowledge applicants’ efforts to apply for jobs on your site

Once the candidate has applied to the job, make sure he/she receives some confirmation of his/her formal interest in the company. Making this communication more personalized will help the candidate stay intrigued…think of it as a call to action. Invite the candidate to follow your company via Twitter or LinkedIn in the correspondence text, itself. By doing so, you can start to expose glimpses of your company culture early in the relationship and the right applicants will more likely stay interested in your company throughout the process, as a result.

Make the first meeting unforgettable

Most of the time, the first meeting between a candidate and an organization’s recruiting representative is an interview, so try to find ways to make this experience more positive and remarkable…not just a stiff meeting at an office in a conference room. Set clear expectations about what to expect from the rest of the interviewing process and then be accountable to following through with promises in order to bolster your organization’s credibility and employment brand.

When interviewing top talent for hard-to-fill positions, meetings could take place at a nice coffee shop. This would put the candidate at ease and also make the experience stand out in his/her mind. After all, when courting A players for critical positions, as a recruiter, you are competing against others that want this applicant at their organization, as well.

Finally, thank all applicants for their time…while not a radical idea, this is sometimes overlooked since normally it is the applicant thanking the hiring manager. These types of small details will leave a lasting and positive impression with your candidates.

As a recruiter, part of your job is to “sell” the position to the potential employee and make sure that each candidate is truly interested in the job. Keeping candidates engaged throughout the hiring process will help to ensure your top contenders accept a job offer, start off engaged and succeed at your organization.

For information on how ExactHire’s hiring software solutions can aid your efforts to engage applicants, please contact us today.

Image credit: engaged by Pia Kristine (contact)