Candidate Attraction VS Candidate Seduction

On February 24th, Adway’s Senior Advisor of Digital Talent Acquisition, Sara Dasfelt, sat down with Alex James Ayin, Marketing Director of Wiser, Social Marketing & Growth Expert, and Employer Brand Transformer to discuss dominating recruitment marketing with the right content. The session is super high-energy and focuses on the importance of using 24/7 storytelling to build a world-class candidate journey that propels your TA game from candidate attraction to candidate SEDUCTION. 

Guest Bio: A Little Bit About Alex James Ayin

Alex James Ayin is the Marketing Director of Wiser, a London-based firm that specializes in the unique intersection between research, recruitment and creative services. He’s also an expert in growth and social marketing, advising some of the world’s biggest brands with his mission to inspire people around the world to become great in their chosen field. Prior to joining Wiser, Alex led the media operation of one of Europe’s fastest-growing social media agencies — Social Chain— which included over 400 social communities, 300+ million followers, and content that was viewed 2.5 billion times each month.

Using The Power of Social Media to Promote Employer Brand 

Social media is the candidate’s digital habitat. In fact, according to recent research: 

•  79% of people use social media to research a business before they even apply. 
• 73% of millennials found their last job through social media.

In today’s world, it’s a must to have a strong employer brand presence, especially if you’re trying to activate it externally. One of the most powerful ways to do that is with storytelling on social media and building a community of people who look to your organisation and think “I really want to work there!” 

It’s up to employers to stand out with value, because candidates want to work at a company that dares to take a stand for something, who has a clear “why,” and who invests in their people. Many employers have these qualities, but they don’t know how to tell the story 24/7 to get people on board. 

Targeting the “Ideal” Candidate Goes Back to Tribes 

As a recruiter, you first need to ask yourself: based on this particular talent persona, what are their typical behaviors? What do they enjoy watching? How do they identify themselves as a person? The concept of identity is powerful because it links right back to tribal mentalities. A tribe represents what someone stands for as a person. Today, people still want to belong to sports teams, work clubs, family units and other “tribes” to experience a universal sense of belonging. 

It’s up to employers to capture this dynamic and put out the kind of content that speaks to a sense of belonging and pairs it with the mission of the organisation. What are the extraordinary things your organisation is doing? And how can these candidates use their skills to accomplish them in your tribe? This will help you build a strong community online. 

Evolving From Candidate Attraction to Candidate Seduction

Making the leap from candidate attraction to candidate seduction starts with realizing the candidate journey is a 24/7 love story that never stops. 

From there, it’s helpful for organisations to take a tactical “4P” Approach: 

1. Planning: Research and ask your people what makes it special to work for your business. Why do they love to come to work?
2. Production: Build different types of content: videos, animations, graphics, and collateral that will resonate and be relatable. 
3. Promoting: Use the right platforms to target candidates based on their demographics and personas. 
4. Perfecting: Assess and analyze the tracking links of all your deployed content and gather a clear picture of what kinds of content people are clicking on. 

Designing a Multi-Touch Candidate Experience 

Today’s candidates, especially in the wake of the global pandemic, are moving even further from “passive” to “petrified.” Breadcrumbing the candidate experience and immersing them in your employer brand is essential in the new age of recruiting. So, how can employers build a story that sticks? 

1. Capture their attention. Candidates are bombarded with information on every platform. It’s crucial to get them to stop in their feeds and engage. Bring in the content that makes people think. 
2. Have a clear narrative or story to tell. Your candidate is the protagonist. They have a challenge. Your company’s mission is their way to overcome that challenge and become enlightened along their journey. 

The 3 Key Pillars of Social Currency in Recruitment Marketing  

• Remarkability  - how can you get someone to remark about your company’s content because it has something worth sharing?
• Make people feel like insiders - by showing them what they’re “not meant to see.” It’s like they’re being shown a behind-the-scenes version of what your company does, like how a product is made. 
• Gamify your content - because, as human beings, we love to compete! Create a concept where people are trying to develop or win something (i.e. the Frasers Group case study). It’s one of the biggest ways to build engagement and community. One example of gamification: 
  • Wiser worked with a company called Unlocked Graduates to create a digital treasure hunt where participants had to unlock a code at the end of an Instagram page. Wiser created four separate Instagram pages, and on each of those pages there was a link to the next page, with information about the businesses along the way. The participants had to keep answering questions and travel along the digital journey until, at the very end, they entered a final code which put them in a special prize drawing. 330,000 participants entered the contest in 5 days and it went fully viral! 

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to Sara or Alex!