To keep candidates from disappearing, recruiters must adopt recruitment strategies that keep potential employees engaged throughout the recruitment process. Here’s a look at some of the top recruitment strategies to keep candidates from vanishing into thin air:
What is ghosting?
Ghosting is what it sounds like: you think someone’s there, you swear you’ve seen someone, maybe even talked to them, but when you try to communicate, you receive no response. It’s a trend millennials made popular through dating apps, where, after any number of chats or dates, the disinterested party stops responding to messages altogether. Some speculate ghosting is a method to avoid confrontation, sending a message that you’re not interested by ending communication.
Recruiters are ghosted at every step of the recruitment process. Some candidates don’t show up for scheduled job interviews, while others accept job offers without bothering to show up on their first day. Some existing employees even quit their jobs by ghosting—walking away from a role without telling a soul. Candidates feel empowered to shop around for more offers in today’s strong economy, causing many to pull a Casper at the recruiter’s behest.
Recruitment Strategy #1: Offer the Best Candidate Experience
If you don’t want to be ghosted by a candidate, you need to make it difficult for them to want to fade away. Leverage your employer brand to highlight the benefits your company offers and make job opportunities enticing. Create personalized email campaigns that highlight your company’s culture beyond the work itself by showcasing your city, unique job perks and any charitable work that illustrates your positive impact on your community. Even better, recruitment marketing tools offer detailed performance reports to help you see candidate engagement in real time, allowing you to identify where in the recruitment process candidates might turn into ghosts.
Boost campus recruitment.
Follow three templates laid out in Yello’s latest recruitment guide, Lead Your Team to Fall Recruitment Event Success.
Recruitment Strategy #2: Text Your Candidates
When communicating with your candidates, don’t leave wiggle room for them to slip away. One of the best recruitment strategies to keep candidates engaged is to communicate through text messaging, which is millennials’ most popular way of staying in touch. It’s easy to mute a phone call or ignore an email, but considering that 90% of text messages are read within three minutes, you can be sure that candidates will read your messages and feel compelled to reply.
Recruitment Strategy #3: Let Candidates Self-Schedule Their Interviews
Want to stop being ghosted during the interview process? Give candidates more control over interview scheduling. Interview scheduling software allows candidates to choose interview times, making it easy to find a time slot that works best. If they need to reschedule, no problem: interview scheduling software lets candidates easily find another time to meet, keeping recruiters informed of time changes every step of the way. This recruitment strategy gives candidates more flexibility and control over the interview process, and with automatic interview reminders and notifications, you can be sure they’re aware of their upcoming appointment.
