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3 main reasons why companies are losing out on talent to the competition:
Salary
Lack of remote
Their messaging straight up sucks
If you got good comp and offer full remote, it’s time to open door #3…
The problem with most messaging is a lack of outside perspective. We’re all proud of what we’re doing. We want to hype it.
But candidates don’t give a crap about how much money you raised. Or what ‘best of’ list you made. Or whatever hyperbole heavy language you use to describe your culture.
Once you’re on the inside, you don’t have the same perspective as you did before. So how do you get it?
👉Ask, dummy.
Last year, Nate Guggia and I dedicated 4 episodes of The Employer Content Show to “What Candidates Want To Know.” We surveyed 4 different groups: salespeople, marketers, software engineers, and recruiters themselves.
(Results in episodes 18-21, here.)
We talk to people in these fields every day. And we STILL learned things that were totally new to us.
I don’t care who you are. If you’re not a job seeker, you don’t know what's in their head.
So fire up Google Surveys.
Who and what should you survey for?
👉Job seekers at large. Improve your top of funnel messaging.
What do people who haven’t even heard of you want to see? What do they want to know before they apply for any job? Or respond to a recruiter? What questions do they ask early in the interview process?
Promote it via social. Segment by skill set. Get the high level view.
👉Job seekers who interviewed with you. Mid-funnel messaging (interview phase).
What got them excited about your company? What did they want to know more about? What did they have concerns about or view as red flags? Who at your company did they enjoy talking to the most, and why?
Instead of ghosting candidates, ask them what they think. 😂
But seriously. Get insights and boost your candidate experience at the same time.
👉Recent hires. Bottom of funnel/closing phase.
Why did they pick you? What aspects did they find most compelling? If they were on the fence, why? How does the day to day reality match up to their expectations?
You should be covering all this in the first 30-90 day onboarding phase anyway.
Extra credit: sprinkle in some live convos. That won’t kill you either.
Once you have some actual data from your target audience, better messaging will practically write itself.
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