5 Ways to Convert Your Top Candidates with iCIMS
Speed and efficiency are critical in talent acquisition, especially when you're under pressure to fill open roles in an extremely competitive labor market...and that all starts with being able to effectively convert candidates to happy new hires. During our April webinar, we were joined by Caitlin Connors, Senior Product Executive at iCIMS, to discuss 5 ways to leverage tech to convert your top candidates.
Check out the full 1-hour webinar below or read on for a brief synopsis of each tactic.
Before we dove in, Edisa, our Head of Growth and monthly webinar host, always likes to kick things off by asking our guest speaker about the one thing that people would be surprised to know about them. You heard it here first…Caitlin is a published author, and her book will be coming out at the end of the year! Exciting stuff!
Edisa asked Caitlin a variety of questions tied to each “way”, so we’ve outlined one Q&A per strategy (& you’ll have to watch the recap video to see the rest!)...
1.) Identify Your Best Content
Q: How can you identify the content that gets the most engagement?
A: Google Analytics is a great place to start, but it’s just one piece of the puzzle. You also need to combine Google Analytics with social tracking. Google Analytics will show you the engagement on your website, but that’s not where everyone is “hanging out”. Candidates are on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, etc., so you truly need to look at everything to paint a full picture of engagement so you can put a full journey map together.
2.) Focus on Your Most Engaged Talent
Q: What are some things teams can do to nurture high potential talent?
A: Everyone thinks the answer is to use a CRM with time-delayed emails, but this doesn’t often work. You can’t push emails on someone, especially if they aren’t opening them thinking that a better subject line will work. It’s all about consistency…rather than doing a one-off campaign, you need to be following up every 6 months, 12 months, etc., and coupling your email efforts with text. Now might not be the right time for the candidate, but you still want to stay top of mind for when they are ready for a role switch.
3.) Send Campaigns You Know Work
Q: How can teams use automated campaigns to convert candidates - can you walk us through a typical structure for a campaign like this?
A: All campaigns start with a trigger and then go off into if/then pairings. You can think about a trigger as something that’s on a candidate’s resume. For example, their current employer if you want to do a competitor campaign. A trigger could also be an action - like they came to your careers page and then didn’t apply. The if/then piece could alert the recruiter to follow-up. Oftentimes, these campaigns can be difficult to set up on your own, which is why it’s imperative to select a vendor that will help you with implementation. The goal of automation isn’t to add more to your workload, it’s to make you more efficient and to receive alerts on when you should be engaging with candidates based on their actions.
4.) Use More Than Just Emails
Q: What else can text be used for besides candidate communications?
A: Alerting your recruiters when a candidate takes an important action - this way they can act on it immediately, which can significantly benefit time to fill metrics. You can also alert your marketing team with social content engagement metrics. For example, maybe you pushed a video out on LinkedIn and want to be notified when it reaches a certain level of engagement. Finally, another idea is to set up referral program alerts. So, when a candidate is hired that an employee referred, they’ll receive a text on when they can expect to receive their referral payout. One thing to keep in mind is that text alerts shouldn’t just be used for candidates, they can be used for internal programs as well.
5.) Revive Your ATS or CRM Candidate Database
Q: Give us your biggest tip on how teams can use their ATS or CRM to convert candidates.
A: You have all of this data in your database that you can use to your advantage across a variety of different campaigns - requalifying candidates, “waking candidates from the dead”, etc. You can use this data quarterly or every 6 months or so, and you should be constantly reiterating on it.
Caitlin ended the conversation by emphasizing how you shouldn’t go into any tech purchase without consulting another trusted partner (or really anyone you know that you trust in the space) to ensure you’re making the right decision for your organization.
Thanks to Caitlin for joining us, and see you in May for our next monthly webinar with George LaRocque, leading work tech analyst and advisor (topic & date coming soon)!
