Summer brings a lot of good things – vacation, beach, pools, etc. But in the recruitment world, all of those fun summer activities lead to fewer people looking at websites and fewer people applying for jobs.
All is not lost – we have a game plan for you to keep applications flowing during the summer, and also to maintain your presence in front of passive job seekers who aren’t ready to apply right now.
Be Smart with Your Spend
Our newest mantra is “spending more is not a recruiting strategy!” If you can’t spend more, then we need to spend smarter. For our clients, the cost per application is up 6 percent in the last two months. How do we overcome that?
- Look at Your Cost Per Click: If your cost per click (CPC) is increasing, that means fewer people are looking for jobs or you have too much budget for your amount of jobs. You’re overpaying for clicks! Overcome that by reducing your budget or sponsoring MORE jobs.
- Look at Your Conversion Rate: If your conversion rate (clicks that turn into applies) is decreasing, that means more people are just clicking and not applying – now is the time to evaluate your pay rate, job titles, and job descriptions.
How do we know it’s important to actively manage the budget? Here’s an example from one of our clients in the Pacific Northwest:
- May 1-7: 132 applies; $2.33 CPC; $21.56 CPA; 10.8% conversion ($2,846 spent)
- May 8-14: 183 applies; $1.14 CPC; $11.17 CPA; 10.2% conversion ($2,043 spent)
- May 15-21: 155 applies; $1.24 CPC; $9.43 CPA; 13.1% conversion ($1,461 spent)
After the first week of the month, we implemented a new strategy and reduced their CPA by almost 50 percent (49.3% if you really want to know) as we saw their budget was too big for the current candidate pool.
On top of those job budget metrics, analyze your application format. Is it as short as it needs to be on mobile and desktop? How much information do you really need? We must reduce friction as much as possible for our job candidates.
Optimize Your Website
If fewer people are landing on your website (and we saw a 9% decrease since April,) we must convert as many people in the smaller audience that’s make its way to your career site.
The best area to analyze revolves around your calls to action. When someone lands on your website, is it natural / intuitive for them to navigate to the next page and take the next step in your conversion process? How do the buttons look? Are the links easy to see?
If we have 20% less website traffic, it becomes even more vital to convert that smaller audience. Take a step back and analyze your website – on mobile and desktop. Ask your friends. Ask your family. Ask trusted colleagues.
(And if you are really good with Google Analytics – look at your website data to see which pages have a high exit rate, or the percentage of people leaving your website from a page and taking no further action.)
Leverage the Database!
If the candidates aren’t coming to you, go to your candidates! No one else in the world has same candidate database that your company features.
What’s your process for reaching out to those candidates? Are you texting them? Are you emailing them? Are you calling them? Do they follow you on social media?
Automation can help here by re-engaging candidates in your database who you haven’t heard from in a long time. Create a workflow to find out if they are looking for a job, still interested in your company, or want to be removed. Just reach out and see what happens – they might be waiting for you!
Go to Social Media
Speaking of social media, your website traffic might be down and job board traffic might be down, but people will be going to social media more often. They love to post vacation photos, see their friends’ summer activities, and continuously scroll during their free time.
That’s the perfect opportunity to get your brand and content in front of them. And here’s a hint – it doesn’t have to be professional content. One of our clients has enormous traffic from posting a listing of fireworks displays in the area. It’s not content for the business, but it’s content people want to see.
Run advertisements or content that people will see. Keep your brand active. The last thing you want to do is stop being top of mind with your audience. If you go away from their timeline, then you won’t be the company they think of when they’re ready to apply for a job.
Branding
This final point goes hand in hand with the social media point above. What can you do in the real world and online to stay in front of your audience? Is it sponsoring a baseball / softball league? Is it advertising at a county fair? Wherever your audience is spending time, your brand should be spending time.
There won’t be a direct value you can get out of that branding. If you believe in awareness, then getting tens of thousands of impressions is valuable. We don’t want people to forget about your company. Branding activities (online or in the real world) keep you top of mind.
Need Help Driving Candidates and Traffic?
Our team is here to help. At Haley Marketing, we are experts in recruitment marketing, digital marketing, and content marketing. Contact our team today to get started!
