You Already Have the Solution to The Great Resignation

This isn’t another article stating, as Monty Python once so eloquently did, “the bleeding obvious."

Yes, people are resigning.

Yes, it's “unprecedented.”

Yes, people disagree on what is causing such fiscal irresponsibility.

Yes, it’s a virtual finger to "the man" and the established norms.

Yes, you need to be doing something about it now.

Yes, you have the tools to do something already.

No, no one has been sharing that helpful information with you – until now.

Let’s get straight to the point and discuss a strategic solution to The Great Resignation problem that can also be a solution for your ongoing recruitment needs.

Chapter 1 – You have already spent a small fortune on building a candidate pipeline

There’s gold in plain sight and it lives in your ATS/CRM/Talent Community.

Ok, so this has always been the case but why now more than ever? Under normal circumstances, a professional changes jobs every two years, on average. Now, apparently, every individual in the country is looking to leave or change jobs. If that is the case, you already have potentially thousands of names in these candidate housing tools. These individuals are part of this Great Resignation phenomenon and should be part of the strategy to replace those in your company that are considering leaving.

Now you just need to craft a strategy carefully and successfully to effectively engage, influence and motivate them to apply.

Chapter 2 – Not making the most of names and the huge expense to gather them

How do most companies market to the names housed in these tools?

• Talent Community Mailings – These are frequently no more than a sending of open jobs. The goal is completely company-centric, and it is effectively - spam. “You signed up to receive open job notifications so here you go, I’ll send you open jobs until you opt-out."
  
  
• Recruiter Mailings – The recruiter will mail an open job to their database and ask for a candidate’s interest or failing that, ask the past candidate that applied for a referral of their friends. Again, company-centric, which no one really cares about.

There are numerous things wrong with these approaches and number one is that there is no wooing. All relationships need wooing, and the above is not wooing.

This is fantastic news for those companies that want to seize upon the opportunity to differentiate themselves from all other companies that put no strategic thought into their outreach.

Chapter 3 – This database is a marketer’s dream

Acknowledge the greatness of this pipeline.

Within these tools you have thousands of names that have raised their hand and said I’m interested and that are in various stages of qualification. Are you qualifying and using them the way you should be?

As a marketer who uses email to promote a service, the five most important characteristics of a list are:

• They have opted in
• They have expressed interest in my service
• I know they qualify to buy my service
• I have their precise area of interest
• I can precisely target them with the information I know they will be interested in – because they told me

Very few email lists have this kind of information.

To reiterate. These names are gold. What are you doing with them?

Chapter 4 - I do this already. I email people.

Realize what you are trying to do.

Sure, you are emailing people. Sure, you may get a few opens. Sure, you get a few clicks. But are you driving engagement? Are they wanting to see what jobs you have open? Are they wanting to learn more? Are they wanting to speak to you?

This goes back to wooing. Most companies go straight for the kill and try to close on the first email: “I have a job. Apply! Apply now! If not, I’ll send you this same email again and again and again!!”

When I put it like that the error seems obvious, doesn’t it? We do not want to bore them, have them ignore us, delete the email. We want them to engage. We want to influence and motivate the recipient of the email to apply. If they do it today or tomorrow, it’s ok, but we do not want to scare them off with our frantic blunt force instrument attempts to make them DO IT NOW!

Chapter 5 – Going straight for the sale might be a bad idea

How do we woo?

The foundation of your strategy should provide your target audience with a well-rounded view of your company. But to an extent – not to where it is company-centric. This means you must provide information on several levels. Topics to cover are:

• Company information – how well is the company doing, acquisitions, client wins, expansion plans, etc. (Why? Because success is good!)
  
  
• Employee testimonials – day in the life, career rags to riches stories, why I joined and have stayed stories, etc.
  
  
• Company Stories – culture overview, DE&I/ERG overview, strategy overview
  
  
• Company Accolades – has the company been featured in an industry magazine

Some of this you will have to create but a lot of it marketing already has.

A good data point is knowing what your competitors are doing. This is an opportunity to differentiate yourself. Remember most companies don’t have a strategic approach to candidate outreach. I cannot emphasize enough that the failure of others is the door opening you need to stand out in the crowd.

Chapter 6 – Talking in a way people will listen

What mediums should we use?

A combination of text, voice and video is excellent. Although the immediate intent is to use these assets for outreach to a candidate pipeline through email, you can also repurpose all this information for your social media, career website, position-specific landing pages and/or events.

Wooing should be used across the board, especially in today’s candidate climate. You need to be able to woo across all mediums.

Chapter 7 – I should track things… but what?

Calls to Action.

Sending emails for the sake of it is not what we are trying to do. With any strategy, you need to track impact. Within the emails, have a call to action that is being tracked. Download a white paper, play a video, follow your social media, attend an event. And because of the wooing, you can be so bold as to have them search jobs or apply. Why? Because you’ve tried to build a relationship through the provision of relevant information not just spamming them with a job posting.

Chapter 8 – The Outcomes

What you can gain, if you do it right.

• Recruiter Bandwidth – this strategy can be set up so that it goes 24/7 with minimal tweaking. Set up the assets, establish a distribution calendar and press send. Now your recruiter doesn’t have to do this and can focus on the other multitude of tasks they have to do.
  
  
• Candidate Pipeline Veracity – because of the wooing, the candidates will be more receptive to your outreach than to your competitors. When recruiters send the job openings, they will get a second glance because they will recognize the name as a company of interest rather than spam.
  
  
• Differentiation – this is vital in the sale of any product. Why you not them? Remember it is likely your competitor is doing little to distinguish themselves and is just adding clutter to the email noise. This is good for you.
  
  
• Spend – having the habit and the strategy of continuing to market to the product of your recruitment advertising spend, the candidates, is not only going to increase the life of the spend, but also the ROI on it. Done effectively this can impact, if not reduce, the spend on media and agencies.

Looking at your candidate pipeline as a marketing tool rather than a place to just house candidates so you can email blast them on an ad hoc basis adds value to the expensive and time-consuming effort of compiling it.

This re-think can change the dynamic of your entire recruitment process and reduce dependency on your recruiters and on traditional media.

If you've made it to the end of this post here’s a key question for you:

Is it time to rethink your candidate pipeline email strategy to introduce fresh and engaging content, metrics, and a shorter time to fill?

If you say it’s a nice idea but don’t have the time - that’s what your competitor said and is exactly why you should do it. You can even enlist us, we have a tool that specifically does this for our clients. Either way, invest the time and effort to get this 24/7, 365 tool working smoothly.

The Great Resignation is not good.

So, it is a good time to change your strategy for the better.

It is time to re-evaluate how you use your candidate pipeline.