Tamara Schenk: Marketing, Talent Attraction and Tech

As the whole world of TA heads into the new year, we can’t over-emphasise the importance of a well-rounded candidate sourcing strategy to set your organisation apart in 2024! 

Kelly Services’ VP of International Marketing, Tamara Schenk, is the Marketing Guru we all need on our side to show us exactly how to build an efficient, effective and highly-scalable sourcing strategy that’s integrated with technology. 

Tamara recently sat down with Adway’s CMO, Sara Dalsfelt, to dive deep into the core elements of a successful sourcing strategy framework: from sourcing skills and channel management to operational structure, database investment and measurement and goals.

Remember: There's no one-size-fits-all formula for success, and the effectiveness of your strategy depends on specific factors, including your unique operating model, the types of roles you're trying to fill, the goals you set and the approach you take.

In this final Adway Live of 2023, you’ll learn how to: 

• Repair a fractured sourcing landscape with the help of integration tech
• Scale personalisation and still be authentic with the help of authenticity & AI 
• Put (and keep) the candidate experience front and center 

Ready to go pro in 2024? Watch the full episode here, or keep reading to find out everything you need to know right now.

A Model For Integrated Talent Acquisition and Management

What sparked our initial interest in this topic was Tamara’s incredibly informative LinkedIn post about integrated talent acquisition and management. 

Here’s the framework that was born from her “aha!” moment:  

Before diving deeper into this framework, it’s important to ask a few key questions (through the lens of recruitment marketing) to uncover your specific goals:

• What exactly are you trying to achieve? 
• What are you trying to drive? 
• What are the challenges your organisation is facing? 
• Where are your biggest obstacles? 
• Is the quality of your applications low? 
• Is the time to fill extremely long? 

Through it all, don't lose sight of key metrics! 

Our hypothetical KPIs, for the purposes of this model, are to: 

• Accelerate talent discovery
• Minimize expenditure
• Enrich the diversity of our candidate pool 

Distribution Channels

The ability to integrate data from multiple sourcing channels is a luxury that, as recently as two or three years ago, many recruitment marketers simply didn’t have. This left them with a lot of vague and inconsistent answers when they sat across from their colleagues in operations. 

Luckily, in 2023 and beyond, recruitment marketers are finally able to visualize the full funnel — from sourcing to placement  — arming them with a) the data they need to have high level conversations tied to key metrics and b) the ability to pinpoint exactly where candidates are falling off.

Unnecessary hurdles in the application process are almost guaranteed to cause talented candidates to slip through the cracks. Are they being asked to open a separate page to apply for a job? Even worse, do they have to create a user account through the company application system?

The concept of 'easy apply' on job boards and social media platforms is an absolute game-changer when it comes to streamlining the application process. It’s all about creating convenience for candidates by meeting them exactly where they are (hint: it’s usually on social media). 

Sourcing Skills 

Social selling and recruiting skills are essential, not just for identifying talent, but also for engaging them effectively in their preferred environments.

Are your team members Sourcing Ninjas with actual, on-the-ground skills? Have they mastered the art of attracting the right attention? 

As we head into 2024, digital literacy and the use of AI are among the top skills that will set successful recruiters apart, in addition to persuasive communication and interpersonal skills and the ability to adopt an empathetic, candidate-centric mindset. 

As data-driven as we strive to be in TA (and we strive high at Adway!), human touch is the secret sauce that brings a successful digital candidate experience to life. 

Operating Model 

Don’t forget to factor in the operational status of your organization. What kind of company are you? Are you onshore, nearshore or offshore? In-house or outsourced? Specialists or generalists? 

Tailor your sourcing strategy framework to your unique operational rhythm. Craft your team for peak performance while balancing cost, proximity and efficiency. 

Applicant Nurturing System 

Today’s candidate is, above all else, a consumer. If you don’t grab their attention immediately, they’ll quickly switch on to something else. Why invest all of your time, talent and treasure on TA if they’re instantly dropping out of the funnel instead of applying to your jobs? 

When you’re armed with the ability to aggregate and unify candidate data, you can analyse the candidate experience from 10,000 feet or drill down to eye level, exposing strengths and weaknesses in your CX process and pinpointing exactly where things are going off track. 

Remember: you’re not in a war for talent. You’re in a war for attention.  How do you plan to cut through the noise and create meaningful relationships that convert into new hires? Keep reading… 

An Easy Win With Automated Social Recruitment Marketing

When you work with automated social recruitment marketing, you can build endless talent pools on social media. And you can keep these talent pools “warm” by nurturing candidates with what your talent attraction system knows will pique their interest.

How are they behaving within your job ads and interacting with your brand? What are they typing into your career page? Where are they dropping off? 

With Adway Explore, you can track and analyse how each candidate interacts with your company, propelling your candidate experience and its insights to a whole new level and redefining your future TA strategy.

Orbiting Applicants Around Your Brand

Similar to how the e-commerce industry can bring a direct shopping (and purchasing) experience into an advertisement, modern recruitment marketing can finally bring job applications into social media job ads through integrated technology. 

What exactly does this mean?

With automated social recruitment marketing, you can bring your career site experience straight to the candidate, instead of hoping and wishing they’ll click there on their own (and possibly get too distracted to come back and apply). 

In essence, the candidate stays “in orbit” with your brand throughout the application journey, in their social media platform of choice, so they never have a chance to drop out of the funnel (and you never have to lose crucial data). 

It’s all about adapting to today’s digital landscape and using it to your advantage. 

Spark a Positive Emotion

From an employer branding perspective, creating a memorable first touchpoint with the candidate is the most important step in any CX journey. And by memorable, we mean a positive thought or feeling. 

How can you evoke such a response? It could be by using humour, a warm and inviting human interaction, an attention-grabbing story, an emoji, or something unique to your employer brand. 

And, as the candidate continues to interact with your company, you should be reinforcing that positive emotion throughout every step of their experience. 

Take an Authentic Approach With AI 

There’s no denying that AI is making a lot of things easier— from content creation to candidate communication and a million mundane tasks in between. Unfortunately, as this dynamic continues to evolve, redundant or impersonal interaction can (and will) rear its ugly head. 

The onus is on those Sourcing Ninjas to ensure authenticity is never abandoned in the candidate experience. Can the candidate trust that a real emotion has been evoked in them? Or that a genuine interaction has taken place with your company? Do they feel psychologically safe? 

It’s crucial to build your candidate sourcing strategy on personalisation and trust. 

Top Takeaways 

When taking a final look at the Model For Integrated Talent Acquisition and Management, here are Tamara’s most important takeaways:

1. Move away from the traditional, siloed approach to candidate sourcing and use the model to reap the benefits of a holistic talent acquisition approach. If you’re not dedicating equal energy to all four pillars, you’re much less likely to reach your goals.
2. If you’re not knocking the nurturing out of the park, it’s not a candidate funnel… it’s a tube… and they’re going to slip straight through it. 
   
   

Amp Up Your Automated Social Recruitment Marketing in 2024 

As we head into 2024, it’s the perfect time to take a deeper look into your organisation and decide how to integrate your talent acquisition and management strategy with the help of your people, technology, data and, of course, automation. 

At Adway, our automated social recruitment marketing solutions complement and enhance the core elements of your strategic TA approach, especially when it comes to channel management and technological aptitude.

If you’re ready to create something powerful in the new year that takes you from fragmented to fully-integrated, we’re here to help you accelerate your talent attraction in 2024!