Solve talent attraction with great digital design

Much has been said of the ‘Great Resignation’ and while UK business may not find themselves in an all-out war for talent, its certainly a competitive market right now. Leaders are right to not be complacent and to consider how they attract talent and create a candidate experience that converts.

Over the years, Pepper Digital have worked with businesses to solve talent attraction challenges through digital solutions, here is some of what we’ve learnt along the way.

Take a content marketing approach

Depending on the business, talent attraction can sit firmly within HR, be part of the marketing team’s remit or live with a specialist recruitment marketing function. Depending on who owns the candidate experience can often lead to varying approaches and outcomes.

From a digital point of view, we’ve found the best approach is often to lead with great content. By treating your candidates like customers and providing them with compelling content you can build campaigns to drive top candidates to apply and guide them through the onboarding process.

Take as much care over your about us, roles, benefits, and values pages as you would if communicating with a client. Fill your digital estates with interesting content to help job hunters narrow down their search and utilise video to bring employee stories to life.

Where to house your careers content

Pepper Digital have recently added a focussed careers section to our website, and this alone has already helped us communicate our values and shift the perception of who we are and what’s its like to work with and for our digital design agency.

We know that candidates seek out careers’ sections on websites. Often the most obscure link in a footer can become one of your most clicked as job seekers search for more information on your employer credentials. By analysing the behaviour of people those users across your site you can monitor how they go on to interact with content and explore your site more widely.

Drive the right kind of traffic

While businesses may allocate big ad budgets to generate new customers the same is not always translated into talent attraction. Having the best website, content and experience is meaningless if the right candidates can’t find you.

We recommend a strong foundation of SEO for all recruitment marketing content. Understand what your target candidates are searching for then build in meta descriptions and keywords within your CMS.

Securing paid media budget will help lift your contents head above the parapet and support the work you already do with external recruitment partners. When you create recruitment marketing content, remember to think about how it will translate to LinkedIn sponsored content and target candidates at the point they’re searching for a new role.

Bring your employer brand to life seamlessly online

Top employers have invested in their employer brand (not just their consumer or customer brand) by bringing to life company values and creating compelling stories about what it’s like to work for them. Those with established employer brands will have their own visual identities and brand assets. It is integral that your employer brand complements your external facing brand so that website users can navigate seamlessly between the two.

Whether you opt for a separate careers site or a section on your main website, the design must be sensitive to your many brands assets but also keep the target user in mind. Shifting the web design and user experience entirely could be jarring, yet potential new recruits will require unique information and use your site in a different way to your customers.

Try to strike a balance between creating an entirely new visual and user experience while keeping the needs of your potential new recruits in mind.

Create a slick candidate experience

Make sure candidates have the very best experience while applying to work for you. It is a taste of what it will be like to be a fully fledged member of the team, so it pays to invest at this stage. Create a connected digital experience by integrating technology through one interface. While you may use multiple pieces of technology in the background via Application Tracking Platforms (ATPs) and various API integrations, the external experience for candidates should feel entirely seamless.

Choose technology partners with great integration capabilities an invest in design and UX that will ease candidates through the application process.

Choose the right CMS

The CMS is the foundation on which your site is built and how you will access the back end to upload content. Choosing the right Content Management System (CMS) can really help the teams who manage your recruitment process, especially if updating websites isn’t usually part of their job.

While marketers may be au fait with several CMS’ and even know some html code, HR teams often don’t. If you are building a new careers site or evolving your current website to attract talent, it’s important to find a CMS that is easy to pick up for novices. We also recommend a CMS where permissions can easily be granted by the website owner, with approval stages if there are users with limited experience uploading content.

We love working with Craft CMS as it provides optimum flexibility and is very easy to use.

If you’d like to find out more about our experience of helping businesses get the most out of their career’s sites and aide the candidate experience, please get in touch.