There are four pillars supporting your recruitment marketing success: job advertising, social recruiting, employment branding, and last but not least, your career site.
Your career site is your hiring storefront. It’s your own real estate. You own it, you control it – and you should continuously be improving it. Because more often than not, it’s where job candidates form their first impression of your organization.
As you view your career site with a critical eye, a key aspect to include and keep up to date is a timeline explaining the ins and outs of your hiring process. Transparency and ongoing communication with everyone currently or potentially in your recruitment pipeline are essential.
The Importance of a Hiring Timeline
Your hiring process is also a pillar: it supports your successful business as it efficiently moves candidates through recruitment, onboarding, and setting the foundation for a lasting tenure at your company. It’s important to be flexible with your process timeline, because you need to adapt it to the requirements of various roles, your industry, and your company.
Steps in the process include:
- Accurate, compelling job descriptions, ads and postings.
- Outreach to your candidate network through social media, as well as more traditional methods.
- Review of applications.
- Scheduling and conducting interviews.
- Reference checks.
- Finalization of a candidate shortlist.
- Job offers.
- Background checks.
- Negotiations.
Actual time frames also will vary – but the common denominator is keeping candidates informed and in the loop. Because if you go silent, they’ll go elsewhere.
Create an effective hiring process – and communicate it on your career site.
Include a page or direct link to your timeline.
- Transparency while hiring establishes your integrity and builds trust between you and candidates. Transparency and trust are the building blocks of relationships, as they strip away uncertainty and fuel the desire to collaborate in the future. Be sure your candidate communication strategy is rock solid, emphasizing speed, thoroughness and professionalism. This is what candidates expect; not only that, but they will also tell their friends and network about their experience. So, your successful employer brand and reputation also depend on it.
- Job seekers consistently indicate that what they want from prospective employers are better communication, timely hiring updates and notifications whether they are chosen or rejected, and a clear idea of when they can expect replies to their inquiries. It all comes down to understanding your candidates, exactly what they want to know, and by when.
Sometimes, it’s easier said than done.
Factors that can challenge robust candidate communication include time, the volume of applications and inquiries involved, and task overload on the part of your hiring team. Here’s where Haley Marketing can help. Founded in 1996, we’ve steadily grown our team into the largest website development, social and content making firm serving the temporary staffing and recruiting industries. Let us help finesse your career site and strengthen all your recruitment marketing pillars. Contact us today to schedule a free 30-minute focus call.
