Creating a strong employer brand is something that does not happen overnight for any organisation. It takes months of planning, research and creativity, so when your organisation is faced with a high-volume recruitment drive there is a risk that you could damage your reputation and undo all of that hard work you have been putting in. Volume recruitment has a bit of a bad reputation, you hear the words and you expect untargeted mass-mails, candidates left hanging, automated responses and worse, but it doesn’t have to be this way! You can successfully manage a high-volume recruitment drive whilst protecting and promoting your employer brand. Here are our suggestions from the Hirecracker team to help you along the way.
Create a standalone careers presence
If you have an urgent recruitment drive ahead of you where you need to attract multiple candidates for one particular area of your business, you might want to consider building a targeted careers hub that allows you to tailor the content and messages to be specific to that requirement, rather than rely on your standard careers website. You want this site to do everything to encourage a candidate to hit the apply button, so if the content and messaging is relevant and direct it will increase your chances of securing a direct candidate. For example if your organisation sits within the retail sector, but your high-volume recruitment requirement is for drivers / couriers, you won’t want candidates to get lost in information about your head office or sales opportunities. Instead ensure all imagery and text is focused on the task in hand, emphasizing why ERP consultants for efficiency are crucial for this role.
Tailor the content
If you want any recruitment drive to compliment your employer brand, you’ll want to think about using content marketing in tandem with posting standard job adverts. If a candidate sees that your organisation has multiple openings for one job role it might raise questions such as “why are they so desperate to recruit?”, “How many people have left that role?” or “I wonder why they have so many openings?”. By introducing content around the purpose of your recruitment drive along with a positive insight into the role you will help to encourage more candidates to apply, and also build trust in your organisation. This could be a press release to announce a new client win and therefore a new recruitment drive to support, or a Q&A with an employee who currently works in that area to highlight why candidates should consider joining!
Increase exposure for your vacancies
To fill a high number of vacancies, you’ll need to attract an even higher number of candidates, so you will want to employ a marketing approach that includes both traditional job advertising as well as a wider approach to reach the passive market. Job adverts should be engaging, so ensure you include plenty of information around your culture and any employee perks that come with the role. Consider which job boards you use to promote your role but remember that this will only reach candidates who are actively searching for a role, so you’ll want to cast your net further. Paid social on platforms like Instagram and Facebook will allow you to reach thousands of candidates, and you can still be targeted by utilising the audience build tools using elements like location and job title. To protect and promote the employer brand in the best way any social campaigns should begin with posts to raise awareness of your company and brand, followed by engaging content to peak the interest of potential candidates followed by job adverts to encourage a direct response with an application.
Use a clever applicant tracking system
With any high-volume recruitment drive the candidate response can be overwhelming, which is why a lot of companies will only choose to get in touch with successful applicants, leaving many candidates disgruntled and feeling ignored. By using an applicant tracking system to manage the response you can ensure every candidate receives a response, even if it is to tell them their application was unsuccessful. According to TalentLyft, 69% of candidates with a negative candidate experience won’t apply again, so not only could you be making your future hiring objectives harder, you also run the risk of negative “word of mouth” which can damage your employer brand. The same idea applies to the time it takes to respond to candidates, if you aren’t able to make a decision immediately, at least manage their expectations and keep them in the loop about when they will hear back. Applicant tracking systems will help you do this with clever reminder tools and “to-do lists”.
Commit to the candidate experience
We touched upon the candidate experience earlier and how an ATS can help you manage this, and it’s important that you don’t lose all of the great ways you nurture the candidate experience just because you are faced with an overwhelming volume of applications. Employer brand and candidate experience are intrinsically linked, in fact according to Talent Adore “78% of job candidates say the overall candidate experience they get is an indicator of how a company values its people”. If you need to, consider recruiting more members of your team to help collaborate on the hiring process, or to be even safer engage a trusted recruitment agency to manage the time-consuming parts of recruitment on your behalf and free up your time to focus on your interviews and onboarding plans.
Streamline the recruitment process
High volume recruitment is time consuming at the best of times, so where possible try and streamline the recruitment process to make this more efficient. You might choose to run a hiring event and invite multiple applicants to come to your offices / a local venue together to discuss their application, or even choose to conduct video interviews to limit the need for face-to-face interviews.
Remember the onboarding experience
The first few days and weeks of an employee joining your organisation can dramatically influence their perception of you as an employer, and also whether they decide to stay. When it comes to high-volume recruitment the chances are you could be taking on 10-100+ people all at the same time, so it’s important that they don’t feel like a number and still feel like a valued new member of the team. An “onboarding day” where you get all new recruits together in a fun environment where they can get to know their colleagues, familiarise themselves with their environment and learn more about your company is a great way to give a soft landing for new recruits. You could even assign a “buddy system” where one of your team checks in on a new employee, to provide support in a less formal way than through a line manager.
We are passionate about helping companies promote their employer brand, and that shouldn’t slip through the cracks just because you have to attract a high number of candidates for a new role. If you would like to know more about how Hirecracker could help you fill a high-volume requirement AND promote your employer brand at the same time get in touch today.
Sophie Hopley – Employer Branding Specialist @ Hirecracker.com
