We all want the best results when looking for new recruits. In days gone by, we would advertise a vacancy, sift through the applicants and interview the lucky few. But the process of attracting the best talent starts much earlier than this. People are circling your organization for many months or even years before they click the button that says ‘Apply.’ With this in mind, we should have a keen eye on the candidate journey. Effectively mapping this out allows us to improve the whole process of hiring and deliver the best outcomes.
What Is Candidate Mapping?
Having a visual representation of all the touch points a candidate has with your employer brand enhances the strategy that goes behind that brand. In the same way, your company brand says heaps about the business, the employer brand attracts like minded people.
Candidate Journey: The Stages
There are several stages a candidate goes through before they become part of your team. For instance, you won’t get a candidate if they don’t know who you are. Here are the 6 stages of the journey –
Awareness of your organization
Considering you as a potential employer
Interest in working for you
An application to join the business
Selection by your organization
Starting the role
Each of these touch points is an opportunity to enhance your reputation. This ensures that the top talent moves through to the next stage. But if you get any of these stages wrong then you narrow the pool of talent that comes through. The very best applicants want to work with organizations that share their values and believe what they believe. Do your touch points reflect your values? Are they easy to find and understand?
Understanding Experience Gaps In The Candidate Journey
Firstly, you need to know what the journey looks like for your business. Map this out. Be hard on yourself when you analyze each stage. Is it as good as it could be? Be honest with yourself too.
Then, speak to recent hires and find out how they worked their way through these stages. Ask questions –
How did they become aware of you?
Was it easy to make an application?
Did they consider not applying? Why?
This will give you some experiential evidence of your candidate journey.
Areas For Improvement
The most effective companies do all the hard work upfront, making it easy for potential candidates to learn about the organization. The days of top talent finding out about your vacancy on a job board could well be over. Developing a pool of talent that follows your employer brand because you have something valuable to say is the method here for the long term. This is the smart way to recruit. Once you have talent following your social media feeds or subscribe to your regular email, you have the audience you crave. This can condense stages 1, 2 and 3 into one. You have people interested in working for you BEFORE you even have a vacancy.
Don’t forget, you still need an effective and user-friendly application process from there, and an onboarding program that makes people want to stay forever, but attracting talent to you becomes much easier if you work on the employer brand.
Now is a great time to understand the touch points of your candidate's journey and work on the gaps. As companies ramp back up and build their teams of tomorrow the competition will be fierce. Organizations that are receptive to the candidate journey WILL win out.
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