Topic groups on Facebook or LinkedIn, discussion forums on Discord, Reddit, Meetup… Internet users love communities. Online, they not only discuss but also seek advice, exchange information – including on professional topics. And finally, they are looking for a job or a person to support them in this. The Internet opens up a wealth of opportunities for recruiters looking to build their own community of candidates. A consciously and consistently built base is also a pillar of talent pooling, where HR experts can leverage contacts cultivated over the years. In this article, you will learn about 6 aspects important when building an engaged network of candidates
Strategy above all
How to start building a contact base on LinkedIn? In simplest terms: invite candidates to join your network. According to a report by Talent Place Talent pooling in recruiting, only 17.3 %. recruiters expand their base with new contacts in a conscious and planned manner. Most act sporadically, when conducting recruitment projects (76.2 %). However, if you want to create a community of candidates, you need to approach the task more long-term and consciously. You will need a strategy.
To start, ask yourself some important questions:
- What kind of candidates do you want in your database? From what industries, at what levels of seniority?
- What kind of recruitment projects are you conducting or want to conduct?
- How do you plan to engage your community of candidates?
They will allow you to determine what you care about and who you should look for. Then move to action.
A good profile on LinkedIn
First impressions are often the most important. A refined profile is an important issue not only for candidates, but also for recruiters. Just as you check the profiles of professionals, they also look at your profile. LinkedIn is your virtual business card, so it is worth taking care of it. Show your visitors your best side. Remember to include on it:
- Professional profile photo.
- A background photo that identifies your specialty.
- Description of your work experience.
- Links to content you have prepared (articles, videos, ventures)
- Recommendations from candidates, clients or other HR professionals.
Thoughtful, engaging messages
Here, as with the profile on LinkedIn – when sending messages to candidates, it is worthwhile to make a good first impression and then maintain it. Take care of every element of the message. What to keep in mind when creating communications to candidates? Pay attention to whether your message has:
- Interesting, catchy and short title.
- Personalized and full of specific content.
- Encouraging call to action.
Avoid sending identical messages to multiple candidates. Approach the task differently, try to prepare messages that will really intrigue, interest and encourage the candidate to integrate. Before sending, take a look at the candidate’s profile. Perhaps he or she shared an interesting article recently, participated in an interesting project or you have common interests? Make reference to this in the message. By doing so, you will definitely increase the chance of a positive response, reply and… a good start to the relationship.
Regular contact with the base
If you want to build an engaged community of candidates, you need to remember to keep in touch with people in your network. How can you do it? Worthwhile, for example:
- Create articles, posts, surveys on industry topics on your LinkedIn.
- Share interesting articles or industry news that may be of interest to candidates.
- Actively contribute under posts created by candidates – leave a comment under the post or write a private message.
- From time to time, write to the candidate about whether his professional motivations have changed, whether he is satisfied with his current job, or whether he is looking for new professional challenges.
Remember, you don’t have to create extensive elaborations and dissect your messages to candidates. It’s about the regular contact you need to maintain with your candidates if you want your relationship to grow. When the time comes that you run a project where one of the candidates would be ideal, you can send it to your contacts. There is a good chance that due to the trust and relationship you have developed over the years, he will respond positively and accept the offer.
Publish interesting content
Regularly publishing expert content on one’s LinkedIn is a challenge for many recruiters. According to the Talent Place survey, as much as 58.8% believes it does not have compelling content to share with candidates, or does not have the time (51.7 %) to prepare such content. How do you find the time, inspiration and help to create content for candidates?
- Plan the content in the perspective of, for example, a month. In a surge of inspiration, you can create more than one post and save the content “for later.” Publish at set times, try to make them come out regularly, such as every week.
- Remember that not all content has to be written by you. You might as well share with your network an interesting article or information about an upcoming event where there is a chance you might meet. Then all it takes is literally a few sentences to the link being shared and… the content is ready.
- If you feel you need support in planning or creating content, contact the Marketing Department or, if you work as a freelancer, ask in marketing groups or among friends. Even a little help with choosing post topics or information on how to write them can be invaluable.
Taking care of expert content on a profile can seem like a time-consuming and difficult task. However, it is worth the challenge and try to schedule regular knowledge sharing on your profile. This will earn you an expert image and interest from candidates.
Expanding the base with new contacts
Finally, remember that building a contact base is an activity that takes years. New professionals from various industries – including your candidates – are appearing on LinkedIn every day. According to our research, 31 percent. Polish recruiters have more than 5,000 contacts in their database, and 28.2 %. Between 1001 and 5000. It’s a talent pool that can “work.” With a new recruitment project, you don’t have to “start over” every time. You can first see if any candidates from your community would be interested in the offer. Or perhaps the “perfect fit candidate” is in another recruiter’s network of contacts?
Talent pooling is a concept that is based on taking advantage of the relationships you have already built. With candidates or… other recruiters. Exchanging candidates and recommending specialists for projects saves a lot of time, which you can spend on point 5, for example. this list 🙂
You can be also interested in flexible working in recruitment.
