Your Recruiting Event Is Over, Now What?
By Jeanette Maister
Well, you’re never truly done in recruiting. But you can be done with your recruiting event. You remembered to pack all the important things, aligned your messaging with your diversity, campus and veteran programs and you ensured you entered everyone you spoke to into your recruitment events system. Now what?
What you do after a recruiting event is crucial. This is your chance to set communication expectations and continue making a good impression on candidates. Here’s what you need to be adding to your post-event rituals to improve candidate engagement and fill open positions FAST:
Automate your follow-up
Email
Email automation is a highly effective and popular medium that companies use to remind candidates of next steps they need to take in the application process. Get this done while you are still on their minds.
If you didn’t craft a follow-up email before you left, do it the day after. Seriously, better the day after than not at all. Job seekers who attend industry events are among the hottest leads in your talent funnel. Make sure you’re following up with all the information they need to continue the application process. Make sure you make the note personal especially if you spoke with them and you consider them a top prospect. A candidate will take note of the personal attention they received, and it will reflect positively on your business.
Text
81% of adults text regularly. And 97% of text messages are opened. So, any form of outreach you can do via smartphones is, well, smart! Use SMS as an opportunity to ask candidates about their personal experience at the event and if they have any further questions about your business. This continues your conversation with them and creates an open line of communication. Using text messaging to follow up with candidates is a much more personal approach that delivers on speed in today’s candidate-driven market.
Imagine having a wonderful hiring event on Friday and calling and emailing throughout the following week to try to schedule an interview, just to find out your dream candidate accepted a job elsewhere. Instead, you can send a text Monday morning to schedule an interview and have a new hire in just days. Texting candidates not only focuses your recruiting event spend, but it also allows you to cut your time to hire significantly, saving you internal resources as well.
Social Media
According to a recent survey, 59% of employees say they were attracted to the company that promoted its events on social media. Harness the social sites your candidates are likely on. Use Facebook and Twitter to give candidates information on what they should do after the event. You can also use social media to give candidates a platform to ask questions they didn’t feel comfortable asking at the event or ask any more questions about your business that have come up since the event.
Social media also gives you the opportunity to boast about your firm’s culture. By driving candidates at your event to your social channels for more information, they will get a glimpse into your culture and values, while getting answers to whatever questions they may have as a candidate.
Hopefully, you have a career site with information about your jobs and the different programs you offer. Be absolutely clear to your new talent pipeline what they need to do next, no matter what platform you choose to communicate with them. Enroll them in a drip campaign to lead them through your application and interview process, especially if you know it might take a while.
Dive into your metrics
Every recruiting event you host should be better than the last. Why? You have metrics to figure out what’s working and what isn’t. With the use of applications and on-site software, you can collect data to take into consideration for your next event. Use data based on attendance and submitted applications to determine:
- ROI
- Turnover rate
- Cost per hire
- Application submissions per event
- Interviews per hire at each event
Taking this all into consideration can help you measure the success of your last event campaign and plan for your next one so your not wasting time. Using these metrics, you can also evaluate the areas you can improve upon. Ask yourself these questions before planning your next recruiting event:
- How often do you follow up with candidates?
- What tools are you using at your events?
- Is there a way you can make your high-volume hiring events more effective?
- Are you collecting the right data on your candidates?
- Are you looking in the right areas for candidates?
Nurture them
Perhaps you met some great candidates you want to offer a job to immediately, but you probably also met some candidates that aren’t quite a match, YET. Make sure you continue to reach out to them via email, SMS, social media, a talent community or via a partner you may have teamed with to conduct the recruiting event. Include anything you couldn’t take with you like testimonials from employees, information about specific programs and answers to frequently asked questions. No matter what kind of event you plan on adding to your recruitment roster this year, it’s important to understand the planning that goes into them, the goals while you’re there and how to follow up afterward.
The best way to ensure your event strategy is aligned with: campus, high-volume, veteran and diversity recruiting events is to supercharge your Applicant Tracking System and Candidate Relationship Management System with products specifically built for these events. Built from the ground up by experts, Oleeo Event Management can transform your recruitment event outreach, management and hiring. Used by Fortune 500 companies all over the world, Oleeo Event Management maximizes the already low cost of hire that events can provide.
This article was originally published on the Oleeo Blog.
About Jeanette Maister:
Global talent acquisition technology leader with extensive experience in global talent acquisition, applicant tracking systems & recruiting technology, recruiting metrics and process. Deep insight into all aspects of campus recruiting strategy. Recognized for driving growth and helping clients transform their recruiting efforts.
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