Employer Branding
& Recruiting:
Our brand new Newsroom Series

How is your employ­er brand reflect­ed in the recruit­ment process? What stages does the candi­date jour­ney involve — from initial contact to onboard­ing? And what role do new media and tech­nolo­gies play? We present the answers in a new series in our Valdivia News­room. Today we start by look­ing at the topic from a ‘drone perspec­tive’. We are plan­ning further arti­cles on topics such as how to approach young appli­cants and the success factors for onboarding.

A candi­date jour­ney in 5 sections

Tradi­tion­al recruit­ment was a straight­for­ward process. Today, howev­er, the picture has changed signif­i­cant­ly. Live formats such as job fairs or speed dating bring searchers from both sides togeth­er in an effi­cient and relaxed manner. For some appli­ca­tions, all you need to do is press a button on your mobile phone. And plat­forms such as kununu create a complete­ly new dimen­sion of trans­paren­cy and compe­ti­tion in the labour market. Never­the­less, the candi­date jour­ney goes through simi­lar phas­es in almost every case — even if the 2nd and 5th often do not receive the atten­tion they deserve:

• Initial contacts
  are usual­ly made via social media, job plat­forms, live events or the job offers on your website. Employ­er brand­ing is partic­u­lar­ly evident in this phase in adver­tis­ing form: with appeal­ing images, texts and — increas­ing­ly impor­tant — videos
• The inter­est phase
  engages unde­cid­ed candi­dates in partic­u­lar: In addi­tion to the media mentioned above, you can now keep in touch with a job newslet­ter, via special social media accounts or groups. These media are well suit­ed to convey­ing the cred­i­bil­i­ty of your employ­er brand­ing through authen­tic insights into your every­day work­ing life, for example.
• The appli­ca­tion process
  should be as simple as possi­ble and only involve a few steps1/2. Clear commu­ni­ca­tion also empha­sis­es the values of your employ­er brand. For exam­ple, prompt feed­back and — in the event of unavoid­able delays — regu­lar updates have a confi­dence-build­ing effect. This shows appre­ci­a­tion and keeps appli­cants inter­est­ed. Many appli­cants, includ­ing young ones, reject pure­ly online processes2. You should at least enable person­al contact on site.
• The Onboard­ing
  covers all further steps after accep­tance, from any intro­duc­to­ry meet­ings with the team to famil­iari­sa­tion and the start of regu­lar work. With a struc­tured sched­ule and an appro­pri­ate time budget, you can boost the moti­va­tion of your new employ­ees and prevent disap­point­ed resignations.
• After a rejection
  , both sides often consid­er the contact to be over. Howev­er, this can be a mistake even if a candi­date was unsuit­able. Empa­thet­ic commu­ni­ca­tion at least limits the risk of nega­tive reviews on kununu & Co. Above all, you should main­tain contact with inter­est­ing appli­cants — just in case your ‘first choice’ turns out to be less suitable.

Tech­nolo­gies for a contem­po­rary image

Today, the candi­date expe­ri­ence is a key factor with regards to the success­ful recruit­ment and the compet­i­tive­ness of a compa­ny. In its ‘Recruit­ing Trends Report 2024’4/5, the job plat­form HeyJobs describes the reor­gan­i­sa­tion of the candi­date jour­ney as one of the most impor­tant current trends. Using compa­nies such as Marriott, Google and IBM as exam­ples, PsicoS­mart, a special­ist in HR tech­nol­o­gy, shows the posi­tive consequences6: greater satis­fac­tion among appli­cants, more qual­i­fied appli­ca­tions and a stronger employ­er image.

New tech­nolo­gies can help to make the search for and recruit­ment of new employ­ees faster and smoother and strength­en your image as an attrac­tive employer

• AI tech­nol­o­gy can be used to person­alise commu­ni­ca­tion and speed up processes.
• Mobile opti­mi­sa­tion is a must today. Career pages, job adverts and job newslet­ters only reach most target groups on mobile devices.
• Base content, design and usabil­i­ty on expe­ri­ence from market­ing, e.g: Which presen­ta­tion gener­ates the best click rates and conver­sions? Where do frequent cancel­la­tions occur?
• Video is the most impor­tant medi­um when it comes to convey­ing infor­ma­tion and emotion in equal measure.

The poten­tial of ‘passive searchers’

People who are not active­ly search­ing can also be of inter­est to you: they may have become aware of you through your commu­ni­ca­tion. But they want to take their time and not switch imme­di­ate­ly. These ‘passive seek­ers’ are unlike­ly to respond direct­ly to a current job adver­tise­ment. Howev­er, they repre­sent impor­tant poten­tial for the future and will be happy to keep an eye on you as an employ­er … if you offer them the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do so.

Simi­lar to the group of unde­cid­ed candi­dates, you can reach passive job seek­ers with a newslet­ter and via social media, but even more so with content-rich media such as a career blog, video reports about your work and taster events where they can get to know your compa­ny with­out any obligation.

Further read­ing

We have already covered some of the stages of the candi­date jour­ney in the Valdivia News­room — and summarised them for you here as an overview:

• Stel­lenanzeigen Job adverts are often still the begin­ning and core of a search when a specif­ic posi­tion is to be filled.
• Social Recruit­ing With­out social recruit­ing, noth­ing works today below the deci­sion-maker level.
• Botschafter Ihrer Arbeit­ge­ber­marke Employ­ees as ambas­sadors of your employ­er brand strength­en trust and comple­ment the loyal­ty and deci­sion of inter­est­ed parties, espe­cial­ly in social media.
• Events enable person-to-person contact — as the most natur­al and often most direct way from the first to the final handshake.

Inter­nal and exter­nal impact

The candi­date jour­ney in partic­u­lar shows how funda­men­tal­ly and compre­hen­sive­ly the world of work has changed in little more than a decade. Factors such as demo­graph­ic change, the pandem­ic and AI-based tech­nolo­gies have creat­ed a situ­a­tion that would have been almost unimag­in­able in the noughties. Today, a posi­tive candi­date expe­ri­ence is no longer an option­al cour­tesy, but a process on the qual­i­ty of which the exis­tence of your compa­ny can depend.

It would also be a mistake to only see this as an exter­nal effect: Employ­ees get to see how appli­cants are attract­ed and treat­ed. This not only colours the gener­al mood, but also influ­ences a very impor­tant source of new employ­ees — recom­men­da­tions from their person­al environment.

List of sources

1. 61% of appli­cants want to complete an appli­ca­tion in 15 minutes or less Source: ‘Talent Board Candi­date Expe­ri­ence Research’ — Soci­ety for Human Resource Manage­ment SHRM, 2024
2. For posi­tions with­out manage­ment respon­si­bil­i­ty, the appli­ca­tion should only include one round: 40% of appli­cants drop out if the process is multi-stage. Source: ‘Candi­date Market Report 2023’ — HeyJobs GmbH, August 2023#
3. Around 70% of appli­cants would like at least one inter­view in a common room. Source such as 2.#
4. ‘The Power Of The Candi­date Expe­ri­ence’ — Forbes Human Resources Coun­cil, July 2023
5. ‘Recruit­ing Trends 2024’ — HeyJobs GmbH, Janu­ary 2024
6. ‘Tech­nol­o­gy in Candi­date Expe­ri­ence Manage­ment’ — PsicoS­mart, August 2024

(Image source: istockphotos)