As the COVID-19 pandemic nears its end, we’re once again entering a phase of recruitment. Across the country, and industries, organizations of all sizes are looking to build and optimize their workforce to thrive in their niche. That, in turn, means recruitment marketing is once again a hot topic. In an environment where multiple organizations compete over top-end talent, showcasing the unique benefits and culture available through your open position can be the key to building the team in the most effective, successful way possible.
That means building a culture your potential applicants are looking for. But it also means effectively communicating that culture through the many touchpoints you have with talent before they sign the contract and begin their work. Join us as we highlight a few clear reasons why focusing on intangible matters, before providing five ways in which you can improve the applicant experience by showing off your company culture.
Why Culture Communication Matters in Creating An A+ Candidate Experience
Modern hiring is about much more than providing a list of responsibilities and tangible benefits. Culture has become an increasingly important consideration point for candidates looking for the best fit not just professionally, but personally as well.
Several statistics bear out the impact that communicating your culture can make on your recruitment marketing:
- Organizations who prioritize candidate experience improve the quality of talent they hire by 70%.
- 75% of employees do not stay at their jobs for more than five years, and 60% to 70% of that turnover is voluntary.
- 75% of employees will research a company’s reputation before applying, and 77% consider the company’s culture as part of their decision-making.
- A strong employer brand, built on a positive culture, reduces turnover by 28% and the cost to hire new team members by 50%.
- 70% of employers would not work at even a top employer in their field if the cultural fit wasn’t there.
The conclusion is simple. The more clearly you can communicate your culture, the more likely you will become to create a candidate experience that helps top talent evaluate your opportunities with their tangible and intangible expectations. That, in turn, means adjusting your recruitment marketing through a variety of tactics, listed below.
1. The Job Description
Your job description is perhaps the most straightforward part of the recruitment process. And yet, it still is an opportunity to infuse mention and highlights of your culture. For example, you can:
- Outline your company’s mission and core values to ensure that potential candidates align with it.
- Highlight personal qualities, not just professional qualifications, that the ideal candidate should possess.
- Adjust your voice and tone to fit your employer brand and culture.
- Link to other media and pages, such as those mentioned below, where candidates can learn more about your organizational culture.
Finding the right balance, of course, is crucial. Heatmap analysis by LinkedIn shows that compensation, qualifications, and job details continue to be the most important pieces of any job description. Infusing culture subtly into that description can keep the focus on those items, while still setting the stage for your other recruitment marketing channels.
2. Your Website’s Career Page(s)
Your website’s primary audience likely consists of potential customers and clients, rather than prospective applicants. That’s why it makes sense to build out a career-specific section only for the latter audience, creating a hub for applicants to learn more about you, see and search open positions, and start the application process.
As mentioned above, audiences will perform a significant amount of research before deciding to apply. Ideally, that research occurs directly on your website. A career ‘portal’ allows you to highlight both tangible and intangible considerations your audience might have. Consider including:
- A list or infographics of tangible benefits, such as health care and vacation time.
- Photos that showcase the spaces in which applicants will work and spend their time, along with employee events that highlight your working and collaborative atmosphere.
- Videos that show anything from daily life in the office to employee testimonials about their time at your organization.
Visuals can be especially effective in this medium. Humans are biographically programmed to react positively to visuals in general, and human faces in particular. The right visuals provide a perfect opportunity to engage potential applicants and use a show-not-tell approach to highlighting your company culture.
3. Your Applicant-Facing Social Media Channels
Over the past decade, social media has skyrocketed as a core recruitment marketing channel. According to Glassdoor, 79% of job seekers across industries now use their favorite social networks to research employers and openings. What they find can make a major difference in whether they will apply to your open positions.
Social media also happens to be a great way to showcase your organization’s culture in an organic, authentic way. LinkedIn Career Pages, for instance, are great to highlight some of the same information we’ve outlined in the previous step above. Beyond that, regular updates by your social media team and employees can go a long way towards conveying your organization’s value and working environment.
The key, of course, is making sure that you find the right channels. LinkedIn is a natural fit but beyond that, it depends on the type of job seekers you’re looking to attract. For example, Instagram can be great as a visual medium for younger applicants, while Facebook is better suited to more seasoned professionals.
Finding the right volume is key. On average, the typical applicant will review 12 or more pieces of content before they decide to apply. A social media recruitment strategy that focuses on sharing human stories and amplifying the real voices within your company can go a long way towards creating an image of your culture in your audience’s mind.
4. Guided Employee Word of Mouth
Don’t forget about your own, current employees as crucial advocates of both your company and its culture. We’ve already mentioned testimonials as a core opportunity for organizations to populate their website and social media pages. But it doesn’t end there. Done right, word of mouth is actually one of the most important tools at your disposal.
In fact, referred applicants are 4x more likely to be hired, while 45% of employees from that source stay longer than 4 years.
Of course, you cannot control exactly what your employees say about you. You can, however, guide and gently nudge them in the right direction. Employers have found success in offering small incentives for their own employees to spread the word, such as bonuses should the candidate be hired.
A cultural emphasis also works here. If your culture is strong enough, your employees will want their personal and professional contacts to work where they do. In that scenario, simply distributing common talking points, or making your internal teams aware of your careers pages, can go a long way towards getting buy-in and word of mouth in the right direction.
5. Immersive Digital Job Previews
As the statistics and studies linked throughout this article show, recruitment marketing is becoming increasingly immersive. Candidates are expecting more than a simple written job description to determine their best match and future career path. Perhaps no medium is better suited to this trend than job previews that immerse candidates into their potential future working environment.
Job previews are 360-degree, virtual reality visuals that show the working atmosphere and environment to candidates through a new and unique viewpoint. Audiences can look around, familiarize themselves with the space, and imagine themselves working within the same environment. Built the right way, they can make a major difference in convincing applicants on whether an opportunity they’ve come across aligns with their expectations, values, and career plan.
The right build-out also allows organizations to leverage job previews to communicate their culture. It’s a shift in mindset from showing just the space to showing the space in a way that represents core values and working expectations. If office decorations and social activities are encouraged, visuals that show off both can have a significant impact on would-be applicants.
Job previews can also enhance many of the channels discussed throughout this guide. For instance, they’re a natural fit to be embedded on the website and linked on the job description or social media. In the process, they become centerpiece content designed for your applicants to browse, immerse themselves, and envision their future.
Ready to Improve Your Recruitment Marketing By Showing Off Your Company Culture?
Recruitment marketing is not a simple process. It requires careful thought and strategy, along with the ability to leverage multiple channels, tactics, and media for success. Job previews, though, especially when they are immersive and engaging, can play a significant role in the process.
That’s where we come in. Concept3D has extensive experience with helping organizations improve their recruitment efforts and candidate experience through immersive digital experiences designed to draw in, engage, and immerse top-end talent. Ready to learn more about our products, including case studies of how we’ve helped other organizations in this same area? Contact us today to start the conversation.
