Using Candidate Personas in Recruitment Strategy
Achieving organizational goals requires a strong workforce. That starts with hiring the right talent. But what does the ideal candidate look like to you? Are there past experiences and skill sets that will help potential employees become successful and contributing members of your organization? The concept of candidate personas assists talent acquisition teams to attract and retain the best candidates in today’s competitive job market. Here, AMNY Recruitment Marketing discusses more about candidate personas and why you should implement this approach in your recruitment strategy.
What Are Candidate Personas?
Candidate personas are representations of a company’s ideal job candidate. Similarly to how customer personas are an effective marketing tactic, candidate personas are powerful resources that optimize the hiring process.
Candidate persons break down ideal candidates by focusing on what drives them, their background, experience, and skills. With a research-driven approach, candidate personas help organizations understand their job candidate audience, which enables them to tailor a recruitment strategy specific to their needs. With a method that assists in creating sourcing strategies for finding candidates, organizations can stock their workforce with exactly who they need to hire to reach organizational success.
Why Candidate Persons Are Important for Hiring
Candidate personas support recruitment strategies in the following ways:
Optimized Candidate Attraction
Candidate personas provide companies with valuable insights into the desires and motivations of their target employees. This enables recruiting teams to craft job postings and recruitment campaigns that better resonate with the potential workers they wish to attract. By catering to the unique needs of ideal candidates, companies are better equipped to grab their attention and pique their interest to consider their organization as a possible landing spot for employment.
Improved Engagement
When it comes to recruitment, engaging potential employees is half the battle. The ability to create tailored messaging through insights gathered with candidate personas cultivates a sense of connection and engagement, which are the foundations for positive interactions. This can lead to more interest from ideal candidates.
Enhanced Candidate Experience
Long, drawn-out hiring processes make for unenjoyable experiences for candidates. Candidate personas allow hiring teams to align recruiting efforts with the preferences and expectations of candidates. This helps to create a smoother and more enjoyable experience.
Targeted Sourcing
There are numerous platforms and networks that potential job candidates and employers can utilize. Candidate personas help organizations focus their attention and efforts on the ones that their ideal candidates are likely to be active. This increases the likelihood of sourcing candidates who are a strong fit for the role. By knowing where to look, companies can streamline their capabilities and allocate their resources accordingly.
Reduced Turnover
Retaining qualified candidates is just as important as attracting them. By identifying candidates whose values and goals align with the company’s, recruitment teams can choose candidates who are a good cultural fit. These candidates are more likely to remain with the employer for the long term, reducing turnover.
How to Create Candidates Personas
To better understand potential hires and improve your recruitment strategy, create precise candidate personas with the following steps:
Define Objectives
Creating candidate personas begins by defining organizational objectives. As a company, what are you hoping to achieve? Clearly outlining objectives will help you clarify your ideal candidate and what you wish to gain.
Research
Creating effective candidate personas requires thorough market research. Companies can collect information from their current employees, as well as industry reports and job market trends. This will provide insight into common characteristics, skills, and motivations that make a successful candidate.
Craft
Once you’ve completed an analysis of your research and have identified recurring themes, skills, or attributes, you can begin drafting your candidate persona. List the key elements to include, such as:
- Qualifications
- Skills
- Personality traits
- Communication style
- Culture fit
Continue by filling out the information you gathered in your research. The finished product will be the basis for the candidate persona template your organization uses for future hiring efforts.
Implement
After you’ve created your company’s ideal candidate persona, you’re ready to implement it into your recruitment strategy. Use to it tailor job postings, align interview questions, and compare applicants. Doing so will enhance recruitment efforts can help your company hire the right candidates.
Refine
The job market continues to fluctuate, and trends are ever-changing. Therefore, companies would be wise to update their candidate personas periodically. Continue monitoring current research and conducting employee interviews to ensure candidate personas have the most up-to-date information.
Create Candidate Personas With AMNY Recruitment Marketing
Candidate personas are powerful recruitment tools that your business should be utilizing. AMNY Recruitment Marketing can help you craft effective candidate personas so your organization can source the best candidates. Contact us today to learn more about our services from our award-winning team.
