How to Nail Personalization of the Candidate Experience as a Recruiter

We live in an era when we are being bombarded with information. The same is true for the recruiting section where potential candidates are overloaded with job offerings and career opportunities. This is the perfect time for the recruiting world to learn how to nail personalization of the candidate experience from the marketing industry since employees tend to expect consumer-like experiences in the workplace.

This certainly includes personalization. Many companies are already customizing their recruiting interactions based on behavioral data to enhance their employees’ experience. Improving your ability to personalize HR services effectively leads to people noticing what your firm has to offer. 

Be Positive About the Data Acquired

It goes without saying that before contacting a person for an open position, you have thoroughly explored their professional and personal background via all sources available.

Thanks to extended social media use, HR specialists today have access to great candidate intel and profit a lot from digging into it. 

Nonetheless, you will hear numerous stories where prospective employees were addressed with the wrong name or were interviewed for skills that weren’t in their resumes.

That is to say, there is no use in personalizing your hiring process if you can’t handle relevant data. Take advantage of all information provided to you through every channel, then go ahead and organize them properly.

Personalization 101

We are long past the time of bulk messaging. Batch emails to your entire list will be ignored or deleted, or, even worse, will lead to unsubscribes. Building an email list for this very reason is a wise course of action. You must be mindful of who you’re sending your communications to, ensuring they will find it relevant.

Remember that candidates should be treated like customers, that is exactly how you will win them over. Use their social media profiles to gather data regarding their preferences.

Check their connections, university data, as well as former employment types. Then, you will be halfway through getting to know them and creating a personalized message that will maximize their engagement.

Prospects who know you have invested effort in reading their profiles will be more likely to accept a position with your firm. This level of personalization carries the promise that their career can flourish the minute they decide to join your team. 

Create the Perfect Job for the Perfect Candidate

For certain jobs, you need certain talent. But top talents demand to feel like you have done your homework. Don’t think about how you can fit an employee into the job while you should be figuring out the exact opposite.

It is your hiring team that must discover what is it they can offer them for your brand to stand out compared to your competitors.

If, for instance, you are in the culinary tourism industry, looking for the perfect travel guide, why focus only on employees with relevant experience or studies?

Narrow it even further to people who show interest in culinary experiences or that have cooking listed among their hobbies in their social media accounts.

You can also benefit from relevant email content and dynamic elements like images, videos, or forms to catch their eye. Right after that, you can go ahead and further tailor their recruiting experience with certain benefits that match the candidates’ preferences. 

Last but not least, keep in mind that not all job offers are destined for all cultural groups. Thus, recruiters must come up with actions that promote inclusivity, such as designing ads with gender and ethnicity-neutral images and diversity initiatives. There is no personalization without diversity.

Use Custom Fields

Custom fields enable you to modify the candidate profile so that you can collect and organize all information available. Fields might be added to offer approval forms for candidates to fill in or be used internally by the hiring team.

Candidate-provided fields will appear when you create the application form and you can set them to required, optional, or off. 

Common custom fields include expected salary range, candidate interests, start date, common connections, preference to work remotely or on-site.

Each field can be added to every candidate or be applied for certain job openings, while it can be adjusted to keep the details confidential.

Match the Benefits to the Person

Once you have researched your candidate’s background, you will be able to figure out what matters most to them. Do they have a family? Are they in need of a remote or flexible job? Do they appreciate the extra knowledge and training?

Some organizations provide for better health insurance, wellness programs, childcare or pet care, all transformed into remuneration packages based on each employee’s lifestyle. 

You could even offer your employees the option to buy shares in your company. This might prove to be a powerful incentive since they will be aware that their contribution is somehow going into their pocket. Moreover, financial advice is highly appreciated as an additional benefit.

Think of them as people whose specific desires you should address. Invest in methods that will help your hiring team identify the ideal benefits for each prospecting employee and use them to create environments for a changing workforce.

Should you invest in bigger or pet-friendly office spaces? According to Toptal, the remote work revolution has taken over. So, maybe you should be going after a remote work policy instead.

By adapting to your workforce’s preferences, you will not only attract new hires but also give your current employees extra motivation not to leave your business. Never forget: satisfied employees are devoted employees.

Avoid Segmenting Your Talent Pool

Personalization comes down to showing candidates why you are contacting them. “You are a perfect fit for the job” is the same line they have heard coming from several recruiters.

Explaining why they are a perfect fit and how they match your company profile is far more effective. It means you value their time and you have already determined how they align with a particular position.

Treating employees as individuals and not as segment members is really important in the long term. The way organizations deal with employees is far behind the way organizations deal with clients. So, HR still has to learn a lot from marketing in terms of hyper-personalization.

Most businesses segment in simple ways. Men versus women, managers and non-managers, young versus old, etc. This results in using untested assumptions to design policies.

With big data analysis and sophisticated algorithms, it is easier to detect and predict individual preferences and organizations can act on the findings.

Never Ignore the Human Factor

And while the usage of certain systems to offer your employees customized benefits is of utmost importance, the human factor must never be ignored.

HR has massively benefited from the advancement of technology but it has invested too much in mass-outreach templates. This approach may work for prospects who are eager to leave their current job no matter what.

However, the same doesn’t apply to people with specialized skills. This doesn’t mean every email must be crafted from scratch, you certainly need at least one element of personalization to enhance your conversion rates, though.

While in the process of offering employees digital experiences, recruiters tend to leave out important human interactions. It is vital to determine which employees would prefer person-to-person contacts and when to do so.

For instance, if employees must engage with HR due to events like a death in the family or a potential burnout, they would rather speak with actual HR personnel than use digitalized systems.

Personalization Doesn’t End With a Hire

Onboarding and performance reviews benefit a lot from personalization too. Some new employees might have previous experience in the industry. Some learn best by listening to instructions or watching visual guides, while others learn in practice.

Your brand can save money through tailored onboarding, while also improving the employee experience.

Focusing on people analytics for the employees’ reviews requires a different approach, though. Some people are eager to learn more about their behavior and how they can use personal data to enhance their performance.

You could focus on this group by monitoring these data, helping them analyze information and using the outcomes to become better.

Think about rewarding performance with privileges that match employees’ aspirations. Are they motivated by money? Do they prefer a great work-life balance? Needs differ for someone who just graduated from university compared to someone who is about to start a family.

As an employer, you’ll need to create engaging experiences for all your team. Get to know them. Understand what drives each one of them and use this intel to create unique experiences.

Key Takeaway

Finding the right talent has never been easier, as long as your HR team cuts through the noise and keeps track of the metrics that make a difference.

The increasing demand and ability to deliver content tailored to the candidates’ characteristics means you need to be ready to customize the recruiting experience and accept the differences within your workforce.

HR leaders can leverage technology to determine whether a human or a digital interaction is best suited for different employees. Job offerings should be going beyond the hiring process, while HR departments have to regularly collect data about how employees are using corresponding services and how their needs might be shifting.

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