Content marketing16

We recently looked at building a business case for using social media for employer branding. We identified three clear objectives: raising awareness, offering an insight into working for you and encouraging better quality applications already engaged with your culture. Now, let’s look in more detail how social media can help build your employer brand.

It’s where your audience are talking

You can’t join the conversation unless you are in the same place as your audience. And increasingly, that means Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram – places where, as an employer, it’s relatively low cost to be. But, it’s not only where your audience are, it’s where your audience shares what they want others to know about. And this is where the social aspect of social media can really support your brand. Do good things and they’ll be talked about.

Modern job seekers in particular are looking for a deeper sense of purpose and responsibility from their employers and they are looking for values that match their own. An article in the Telegraph, quoted research suggesting 76% of millennials are happy to share photos, videos and information around their employer’s corporate social responsibility efforts over their personal social media channels. That’s great for awareness of your employer brand but it also supports something even more valuable. Trust.

It’s where trust and engagement is built

It’s human nature to trust who you know. So, if your friends are saying good things about where they work on social media, or they what they hear about where their friends work – it’ll carry more kudos than if it comes from you. The reality is that it can come from you. You can encourage your employees to create content, share a bit of your culture, use hashtags – and it doesn’t have to be slick – or expensive.

Social media content can be produced using smartphones and shared on Facebook. The great thing is that it gives a more authentic insight about your workplace – and authenticity is trusted. People will believe other employees views rather than what they traditionally might have perceived as your brand messaging (your recruitment ads) – but get your employees on-board and social can also be your brand messaging, that’s the beauty of it.

Social networks offer reach

The clue is in the name – network. Social media offers tremendous reach. It might be overly ambitious to hope that your recruitment video will go viral and compete with Justin Bieber, but it’s highly likely that the network of your employees and friends is much bigger than yours as an employer. And, when they’ve got something positive to talk about and share, as in our corporate social responsibility example, it’ll only grow.

The best thing of all is that the people we want to hire are often in our employees networks. If they can reach them, and feel proud and engaged themselves, how powerful and valuable is that reach? And I haven’t even covered the targeting you can do with social media allowing you to reach a specific region, people’s characteristics and interests and go deep into talent communities. It’s an especially powerful tool – almost a science but this isn’t the time to go all scientific on you.

It attracts passive candidates

When you only use traditional recruitment media, you are only going to reach those looking for a new role. You’ll be missing out on that valuable pool of potential candidates. They might not be seeking a new role but could be just the kind of hire you are looking for.

By using social media to raise awareness, show insight and build trust – you’ll start to tap into the holy grail that is turning a passive job seeker into an engaged, active candidate, already knowledgeable about what you do, what it’s like to work for you – and motivated to apply. And why not use social media to be pro-active? Don’t wait for them to contact you, show them they’ve got what it takes – make the first move.

It attracts and supports the right kind of candidate

Recruitment is expensive, particularly if you have to repeat the exercise. Social media allows candidates to do their research on their terms, listen to who they trust and decide to apply being much better informed that they’ve ever been before. Social media can also support the candidate by playing its part in creating a positive candidate experience.

With a marketing hat on, recruitment is just as much about candidates purchasing your employer brand as it is about your selection decision. A career move is a big purchase with multiple considerations before someone actually applies. Social media can make it a whole lot easier for the right kind of candidate to apply – just as it helps people decide when they are not right for you, saving your time in the process.

It enables real-time and quicker recruitment

Facebook live, online interviewing, one to one interaction – and potentially anywhere in the world, wi-fi permitting. Screening candidates has never been so simple due to the possibilities that social media offers when interviews are concerned.

It’s a relatively small investment to take your recruitment process to a level of flexibility that your candidates are increasingly used to. It’s great for the candidate experience and, if you’ve taken this much trouble in the recruitment process, it speaks volumes about what it must be like to work for you.

In short

It’s important to be realistic with what you can achieve by using social media to support your employer brand and recruitment process. It’s good to have a presence for all sorts of positive reasons but identifying actual return on investment can be a challenge. You’ll almost certainly get results from your investment but it might not be obvious from where, at least at first.

Social media can be used as a platform with huge reach to share your employees voices and the type of culture you are. But one thing is for sure – if you’re not part of the conversation you’ll let potentially great candidates go to where they’ll feel more welcome. It’s called social media for a reason. Be nice. Be social.

Need a little help?

If you feel that you’d like some help, support or even a little chat around defining your employer value proposition, developing your employer brand or any aspect of your talent attraction strategy just drop us a line. After all, much of our best work has started with a cup of tea and a biscuit.

Back in March I started writing about employer branding. It’s turned into a bit of a series and it all began with how to put the business case. It’s all very well wanting to spend a slice of your resourcing budget on that idea you’ve had – but before you get sign-off, someone, maybe your HR Director, is likely to ask you for the evidence. So I thought I would turn my thoughts to social media for employer branding.

My initial thoughts made the point that, whether you like it or not, you already have an employer brand. That’s because people have opinions and they rather like sharing them. They might not even be working for you to influence how you are seen as an employer. You don’t need me to tell you they’ll be doing it on social media. So, for me, the business case is pretty black and white. Do you want to be a part of that conversation – or not?

If you’ve been thinking you should really do more with your employer brand on social media, but you haven’t been able to explain why – this is for you. If you were to ask me why you should invest in social media activity (and what you might expect to get back), my reply would go something like this.

Start with a realistic goal

Goals are great things to have – just ask Gareth Southgate. But, your goal with social media isn’t quite as easy to define as hitting the back of the net. The success of social media activity can be difficult to pin down to an actual outcome and return on investment, so, if you set your goal as being realistic, but not quite specific, you’ll be on the right lines.

A realistic goal would be for your social media activity to help strengthen your ability to hire great people.

It’s a very positive outcome with strong potential payback – but you are not promising instant results – and that’s the key at this stage. You’ll be able to see where improvements happen – over time. If you over-sell the goal, you only raise expectations, it’s best to manage them at the outset. That’s the end of the World Cup references, I promise.

Identify your objectives

So, you’ve told the HR Director that you need to be a part of the conversation and that social media can help you influence that conversation and strengthen your employer brand. You might be asked to put some clearer objectives on the table, particularly if you are working on a specific recruitment project or campaign. So what might an example look like?

Let’s say you are a major employer in one or several locations. You have a range of customer service, financial services and corporate services roles to fill. Your social media objectives aren’t to fill specific roles – at least not directly.

What it can do is raise awareness about you as a recruiter of these roles, offer an insight into what it’s like working for you and, through sharing the good aspects of working for you, encourage high-quality applications to your vacancies. So, when candidates do see your roles, they’ll be better pre-disposed to apply – they might even want to look you up and apply on spec.

You’ve identified three clear objectives you want from social media: raising awareness, offering insight into working for you and encouraging better quality applications already engaged with your culture.

In our next article we’ll look in more detail how social media can help you achieve these objectives.

Need a little help?

If you feel that you’d like some help, support or even a little chat around defining your employer value proposition, developing your employer brand or any aspect of your talent attraction strategy just drop us a line. After all, much of our best work has started with a cup of tea and a biscuit.

Depending on when you’re reading this, Google for Jobs has either already launched, or is due to launch very soon. Which means that you’re either enjoying the free-of-charge surge in job seeking traffic that suddenly started arriving at your careers website, you’re wondering why you’re missing out, or you want to know what on earth Google for Jobs actually is and how you can prepare for it.

We believe that Google for Jobs is a huge opportunity for employers. It’s levelling the playing field for all recruiters by making sure that everyone is playing by the same set of rules and being held to the same standards. And if you’re prepared, then being an early adopter could give you a significant advantage over your competitors for talent. And, to get started, we’ve answered some of the questions that you might have on this big topic.

What is Google for Jobs?

Google for Jobs launched in the US in June 2017. According to Google it “uses machine learning to understand how job titles and skills relate to one another and what job content, location, and seniority are the closest match to the jobseeker’s preferences.” Put simply, it’s an algorithm that better organises job listings on the Internet so job seekers can find them.

I know what you’re thinking, “Can’t we look for jobs on Google already? What’s the fuss about?” But do that now and you’ll be presented with a list of job boards carrying those roles – and you’ll then have to visit each one to find out more. Do the same when Google for Jobs arrives in the UK and it will take you to the exact roles matching your search.

Why is it a good thing for employers?

Google are offering employers the opportunity to have their jobs indexed by their search engine. And if they are indexed correctly, then job seekers are going to see them. With so many jobs being indexed from job boards and direct employers, Google for Jobs could quickly be the go-to place for job seekers. What’s more, candidates will be able to apply directly through your careers website (or ATS) via Google for Jobs. It’s a new and user-friendly way for candidates to find your roles – and to drive traffic to your careers website direct from Google.

Why is it a good thing for jobseekers?

When a process is made easier, saves time and gives better results, what’s not to like? Instead of visiting different job sites to make sure they haven’t missed a role, Google for Jobs will deliver positions closely matching a jobseeker’s preference – which could include location, type of job (full-time, part-time), ideal salary range, company type and even the specific employer by name. And it will eliminate any duplicate listings. Google’s means of filtering will help jobseekers construct a highly-personalised search – which could quickly identify roles that might not show up in a traditional search.

What will it look like?

Well you may have already seen what it looks like, as Google for Jobs is already live in the US. If you were searching for ‘marketing jobs’, sandwiched neatly between the sponsored and organic links you’ll find a new box called ‘Jobs’. In it you’ll find the jobs that Google believes are most relevant to you based on your search and location. They will be a mixture of job adverts from the job boards and employer’s careers websites. But from what we understand, direct jobs featuring on careers websites will be given priority over those listed on the job boards.

Can’t I just ignore it?

It’s your call but, as an employer, you’d want your vacancies to show up where job seekers are looking, wouldn’t you? When people want to search for something online, 90% of the time they turn to Google. So, when Google start making job searches as rewarding as they’ll be with Google for Jobs, we’d be amazed if it doesn’t quickly become the place to search. Imagine, your competitors roles are showing up, but yours aren’t. Ignore it if you want to. But why would you want to?

How can I be ready for it?

Google for Jobs will look for the same things in a career site that it does in any good website. If your career site is mobile friendly, has fresh content, the right keywords (and clear job titles) with well-indexed job postings on the same domain as your website (very important), then you are some way towards being ready. And if you have video on your careers website Google will like it even more. If however, your roles are advertised from your ATS – which usually has a domain different from the main website, then you have some work to do. Google for Jobs will not find roles hidden from their search bots by the ATS.

Need a little help?

We hope that we’ve given you a little more insight about the opportunity offered by Google for Jobs – and you are as excited as we are. There’s always an advantage in being an early adopter so, our advice is to start finding out more and if you have an ATS, ask your provider what they can do to help you prepare.

We hope that you have found this little snapshot useful. But if you’re hungry for more detail, then please request a copy of ‘Our little guide to Google for Jobs’ ebook. There is much more information available on what you need to do to get the most out of Google for Jobs.

Be honest, is this you? You’ve done the hard work. A candidate has found your job advert either on a job board or on your careers website. You’ve got them. They are yours for the taking. So what do you do? You deliver them an uninspiring set of bullet points all about what you are looking for. What an opportunity missed. All because you simply cut and pasted the job description onto the site and failed to think about what the candidate was actually looking for.

Now I appreciate that you may be short on time and needed to get the advert live as soon as you could. But I truly believe that by taking the time to write a compelling and inspiring job advert you will end up with better quality applications. And that is worth the extra thirty minutes you’ll spend on it. And we hope that this little guide to writing a compelling job advert will help.

Assume nothing

According to The Candidate Experience Awards, 48% of applicants have no previous relationship with your company. Some may not have even heard of your company when they see your job advert. So start with knowing the basics: who you are, what you do, what makes you special and why they should want to work for you. We are going to weave this into the advert.

Make your job searchable

If you want your job advert to be found, then you need to make sure that your job title is something that people will search for. Avoid words like ‘Ninja’, ‘Guru’ or ‘Jedi’. Stick closely to industry standard terms that you know job seekers will be searching for.

Some job seekers will browse for jobs by category as opposed to searching by job title, so make sure that you have listed it correctly against the correct category. And while you’re at it why not sense check the categories on your website. Are they clear and intuitive? Are they designed to help a job seeker or just reflect the structure of your business? If it is the latter, we’d recommend you change it.

Lead with the purpose

It is a competitive market out there. Why should someone apply for your job and not someone else’s? What’s in it for them? Great questions and certainly ones that the potential applicant will be asking themselves. So let’s answer them for them. Talk to the hiring manager, get them to answer them for you. Ask them, “Why is this role integral to the success of the team (and the business)?”, “What are we missing while this role is left unfilled?” and “How can the person doing this role make a difference?”. Use the answers to create the introductory paragraph to the advert. Make it emotive. After all, it may be the only copy in the advert they read. Make your first impression a great one.

If you like it, then you should put a salary on it

So few job adverts have the salary on them. Why? Are you embarrassed? Have you even checked that it is competitive? It is really important to a job seeker. It is one of the top things they are looking for. It is how they judge the seniority of the role. More importantly if your competitors aren’t doing it, then by simply showing the salary you have a competitive advantage.

Location, location, location

When job seekers are searching for jobs they already know how far they are willing to travel and so will be looking at specific towns or cities. So be specific with your location. Don’t think that by listing a geographically diverse location your job will appear in more searches and appeal to more candidates – the opposite is true. The clever tech behind job search engines and job boards means vacancies with very precise locations, appear in searches for not just that place, but the region it’s in, as well as the UK.

Writing the advert

A job description is not a job advert. A job description is a legal obligation. A job advert is a beautifully sculpted piece of employer marketing. Think like a job seeker. What do they want to know? How can we make it easy to read on screen? How can we avoid boring them to tears? From the conversations that we have had with job seekers the key is delivering content in an easily digestible way. And that doesn’t mean bullet points.

Use headings

These will help structure your job advertisement. Job seekers are likely to be skim-reading dozens of job adverts in a single session, so give your company the best chance to make an impression.

Tell them about the job

But make it personal. Use language like ‘you’, ‘your’ and ‘yours’ as opposed to ‘we’, ‘us’ and referring to the company name. The job seeker is looking at your company and the role is going to have a positive impact on their life. They’re also looking for some idea of where this job could take them. So why not tell them?

Be clear on what you are looking for

Many job seekers want you to describe what a great employee would look like. Be explicit. The right candidate will be able to recognise themselves from your description and should be inspired to apply.

Structuring the job advert

So what does a perfect advert look like? Well, it is likely to vary from job board to job board, so you may want to familiarise yourself with the ones you use most regularly. Find out how their search engines work and how the advert appears in the search results as well as the full advert, and whether they look different on a smartphone.

But as a rule of thumb, we like this structure:

• Job title
• Location
• Salary
• The purpose of the role
• About the role
• About you
• Reward and benefits
• About the company
• Application process
• Call to action

You could even use these as headings. They will allow the job seeker to quickly jump to the section that they are most interested in.

A simple little check list

So there you have it. Nothing ground breaking. Mostly it’s good old common sense. And I am sure you’ll agree – pretty straight forward. But if that is the case, why are we seeing so many uninspiring job adverts? So, next time you write a job advert, why not ask yourself these questions:

• Does the job title adequately describe the job? Is it crystal clear to the outside audience?
• Does the copy tell the job seeker what they need to know? Do we have enough filters to discourage unsuitable people from applying?
• Is all the information relevant?
• Are we presenting the company – and the role – in an attractive light?
• Is the copy clear, concise and appealing? Are we using the words ‘you’, ‘your’ and ‘yours’?
• Is the application process clear?
• Would the advert inspire me to apply?

And that’s that, all the elements that make up a well crafted, highly targeted and, most importantly of all, interesting and readable job advert. Feel inspired? We hope so.

Need a little help?

If you’d like to discuss how we could help you write better job adverts or even train your team to, then please get in touch.