From candidate to hire without any hassle: improve your recruitment funnel now

Maybe you’re reaching the majority of the active candidates, but not the other 20% of the market? Perhaps applications are few and far between, and you’re looking for ways to boost your numbers?

Or maybe you’re looking for ways to automate parts of your recruitment process. Talent Attraction Technology might be able to help you with all of these problems – but more on that later.

The overall situation in the job market

Let’s have a look at the situation in the job market. At the moment, we’re in a market lead by candidates, which means that your job postings are a lot less likely to get noticed and interacted with.

Unless of course, you set up a seamless recruitment funnel so smooth that even the hardiest job seekers will find themselves clicking “apply” before they know it.

Plus: a personalized funnel means getting in better quality applications, from candidates that fit your company like a glove.

Get started on this today, because a recruitment process with too many layers is the biggest turn-off for 82% of job seekers, according to a survey from CareerBuilder

Anyway, read on and find out where your funnel may be lacking. Let’s have a look at the six stages of the funnel and analyze the most important elements for each step.

1. Create awareness and check your employer branding

Everything starts with awareness. When candidates know about the existence of your company, they’ll be able to remember and hopefully, find you at the right time. An investment in awareness is an investment in the future.

When creating the awareness layer, keep in mind that humans are a visual species: we have a lot more trouble remembering names and numbers than we do colors and shapes.

That’s why you want everything about your online presence to be in sync. Your website and social media should have the same distinct visual identity. When there’s text, make sure it speaks one unified language: a distinct tone of voice will stick in people’s memory.

All of these pieces of content should tell a coherent story about you. Looking to stand out? Organize a photo shoot for your brand, or make a great-looking employer branding video!

It’s not all advertising by the way: simply maintaining an active social media presence can make all the difference for those looking to apply.

Are you trying to get the right eyes on your ads, but sick and tired of using different ad managers and reviewing your ads one by one, platform by platform?

That’s where Wonderkind can help: we take care of all your social media job advertising on the different social channels. Just provide us with your job description, and we’ll make sure your ads are shown to the right people in the right place. And we’ll make it look good, too!  

Of course, always supplement this with your other tools:

• Encouraging referrals by employees
• Posting on job boards
• Plain old promotion of your careers website.

2. Good, they look like they’re considering you as an employer!

Now’s the time to reel them in: what would make a job seeker consider your company as a good place to work? Have a critical look at the homepage of your website and the main pages of your social media profiles.

Are they uniform, and are things like the “About us” page up to date and as complete as possible? This will probably be the first place they’ll go, so it really needs to give them a good picture of who you are as a company.

Going one step further, have a look around Google, notably review websites or on LinkedIn. Check if the image of your company corresponds with what your search results say.

Perhaps you’re getting the same question from all of your applicants? Something they all ran into while researching your company? Then this specific issue might be worth addressing in a blog post.

3. There’s no denying it, the candidate is interested

Right now, you should have all eyes on you: there is a candidate there, and he or she is interested. They’re ready to apply! Make sure the “Apply” button isn’t hidden at the bottom of the page.

Either keep your job postings short, or make sure the button is clearly visible at all times. Add a contact underneath so they can ask any final questions directly to you or to a well-informed team member.

Make sure you’re ready to answer any and all questions about the job posting and your company. When the phone rings, you should be able to tell anyone on the other end exactly what this thing they’ve seen online is all about.

4. Keep candidates engaged: Don’t lose them during the application process

Be critical about the steps candidates go through once they’ve clicked, keep the application process as light as possible. Every extra layer you implement, like asking to leave a CV, could be a reason why candidates don’t complete the application process.

Oh, and don’t forget: many job seekers are on mobile these days. The moment they see your ad will often be the moment they apply. A website that doesn’t work on mobile is an application killer, as is having to fill long forms or having to upload certain specific information.

If you lose a candidate in this phase, you have no guarantees that they’ll return.

5. Make your hiring process fast, friendly and fluent

This next step is one that many businesses struggle with: after getting the applications in and selecting a number of candidates for further interviews, there are a few things that will help you make the process as smooth and pleasant as possible for all parties.

First off, decide which questions you’ll ask all the participants. Run these by your co-workers and by people from the team you’re hiring for, or even invite them to join you for the interview.

They can help you balance the questions so they’re relevant and give you a good idea of whether the applicant is a fit. If there are assessments, don’t make them too cumbersome and don’t try to find out éverything with one assignment.

Decide what the most important properties are for a candidate, and focus on those.

Last but not least, interviews are a special and scary moment, and a highlight of an interviewee’s day or even week. Put them at ease by showing them that you appreciate their time.

Take a moment to show them the office or get a coffee. Be straightforward but friendly, and make sure that you set clear timeframes for when they can expect a result.

6. OK, it’s decision time!

So you’ve spoken to all the candidates, and one has caught your eye. Everyone likes him/her, the assessment was perfect and you’ve decided to make this candidate an offer.

As some applicants can be in high demand, it’s important to make your offer as personalized as possible. If you’ve done your research and asked the right questions, you’ll know what the employee wants. Is this someone who values flexibility?

Then make sure that this is prominently highlighted in your offer. The same goes for things like pension schemes, a company bike or car, or extra vacation time.

Congratulations on your new hire (hopefully)!

Let’s look back at the process

It’s important to collect insights during every step of the process. Here are a few questions to ask yourself for each of the previous steps.

Employer branding:

• How many applications are you getting, which channels dominate?
• What do candidates report seeing (or nót seeing)?
• What do candidates think about the style and messaging? Ask them!

Sourcing candidates:

There you have it, our simple guide to help you streamline your recruitment funnel! We hope these tips help you get the talent you need.

• How many referrals did you get, can you boost this somehow?
• How did the job boards perform vs. owned channels?
• How many candidates applied and what kind of profiles were they? If lots of wrong profiles are applying, chances are you’re sourcing the wrong way.

And don’t forget: technology is playing a bigger and bigger part in recruitment. Time not spent on optimizing advertising campaigns can be time spent on interviewing candidates, optimizing questions and assignments, or creating employer branding content.

That’s why you need Wonderkind: we’ll take care of your job ad campaigns, optimizing them for you over a number of different channels.

Not only will we run the campaign for you, but we’ll also give you clear and actionable insights into the results, all collected in an easy-to-use dashboard.

We live to make your sourcing easier, and our specialists can help you make this part of the process a breeze. Interested in finding out more? Check out the rest of our website and feel free to contact us to book a demo.