Automation and personalisation, they are both hot topics in recruitment land. At first glance, these two trends seem to work against each other, but that doesn't have to be the case at all. By automating, you can actually personalise more and offer each candidate a unique candidate journey. In this blog, you will discover how to let personalisation and automation go hand in hand.
The current recruitment focus areas
If you look at the key recruitment trends and changes currently taking place, you’ll soon see that many employers are focused on improving efficiency, for example through AI and robotic process automation (RPA). At the same time, there is a strong focus on optimising the candidate journey, and a personalised approach to candidates is key to success.
At first glance, these two focus areas seem to contradict each other. Indeed, when people think of automations, many people think of replacing human actions with software. And that is also what automations do. Only this does not have to mean that your recruitment process becomes more impersonal. On the contrary, you can make it extremely personal!
You do this by linking data, automations and your recruitment marketing. Thanks to data, you already know a few things about the person you want to address and you can do so in a targeted way. With automations, you ensure that this does not require endless manual work, but that it remains manageable for recruiters and recruitment marketers. This way, you create a candidate experience that is thoroughly personal and you improve efficiency in your recruitment process. Two birds with one stone!
4 examples of the combined power of automation and personalisation in recruitment
1. Addressing someone personally in recruitment campaigns
By using targeting options in your employer branding and vacancy campaigns to choose a specific target group, you can address candidates in a personalised way. For example, if you are running a campaign with which you want to reach finance professionals, you can create various niche target groups - such as starters, mediors and seniors - and address their specific triggers and needs in your content.
For instance, in the ads aimed at starters, you can focus on the development and growth opportunities within your organisation, while you mainly trigger the senior target group by talking about the pleasant work-life balance. You can even address the different target groups very personally, for example with an opening like: "Getting your finance career off to a flying start?"
Besides hyper-targeting, you can use retargeting. With this, you re-approach people who have been on your Linkedin company page or work-at-home site, for example. You then know which pages they have visited on your recruitment site and can remind them of their previous interest in a personal way. For example, if a person has viewed the vacancy of assistant accountant on your work-at-home site, you can use a retargeting campaign to approach them again via social media and address them very personally. For example, with a text like: "Nice that you looked at a job as assistant accountant with us. Shall we have a cup of coffee soon and talk further?"
If you have to set up all these campaigns manually with hyper-targeting and retargeting, it is a lot of work and almost impossible. With automations, though, you can get this done quickly. Automation therefore allows you to create and monitor mega personalised campaigns easily and quickly. A great example of the strengthening power of the two!
2. Choose your own way of applying
Another way automations and personalisation work well together is in the field of job applications. Candidates want an approachable, personal and equal process. Not the old-fashioned application form with CV and motivation and then the fire of questions in interviews. With recruitment marketing automation, you can respond to this need, for instance by letting candidates choose their own way of responding. Think of options like 'call me', a WhatsApp application or entering your LinkedIn profile. This way, you offer everyone their own candidate journey that suits their needs.
Even if you choose a chatbot or WhatsApp bot as your application method, you can very well personalise it with automations. For instance, you can have the chatbot ask questions (e.g. about someone's experience, education and availability) and determine the next steps based on the answers. If a candidate meets all the criteria, you give the candidate the option to schedule an interview immediately. If there is any doubt whether the candidate is a good fit for the vacancy, you ask for the phone number and the recruiter will call the candidate within 48 hours. This way, you make the process of applying very accessible and personal. In addition, candidates know immediately where they stand and that is experienced as very pleasant.
3. Automatic and personalised follow-up of leads
If you ’re using lead generation tools to boost your conversion rate (tip!), you’ll naturally want to follow up properly on all responses from potential candidates. By using automation, you can ensure that a candidate receives a quick and personalised response. For example, you can use automated questions to link someone directly to the right recruiter or manager. This way, the candidate is quickly put in touch with the person who can answer their questions or assess the substance of their response. This makes recruiters and other staff very approachable, which creates a personal touch!
What’s more, in automated lead follow-up, you can address someone personally by name and ask follow-up questions based on their interest. For example, if a candidate applies for a lorry driver vacancy, you can automatically check which driving licences they hold. If the candidate does not yet hold all the driving licences required for the role, you can ask whether they are willing to obtain them in the near future. This makes the candidate feel they are being treated very personally, even though no human has been involved yet.
4. Connect with the best talent
You don't need talent pools full of candidates you never have contact with. Instead, you want to build a personal connection with the best talents in the market, so that they think of you first when orientating a job switch. Staying in touch with hundreds of candidates manually alone is not doable. That's where automations can help you.
With recruitment marketing automation, you can easily and quickly build a personalised nurturing campaign. By getting in touch regularly with personalised content - for instance by e-mail or WhatsApp - you build a relationship with the candidates in your talent pool.
You already know quite a lot about the people in your talent pool, for instance the type of job they are interested in, their current job and employer and their ambitions for the future. You can capitalise on that in your nurturing campaigns, building a personal connection with these talents. For instance, you can email them subject-specific developments, send them a 'behind-the-scenes' video of the team they might be part of in the future, or app a customer story that shows your working method or vision. Try to match the content of your nurturing campaigns as closely as possible to the candidate's world and needs. Then you will be sure to build a personal connection with this talent, even if it is largely automated.
Don't forget human contact
With these recruitment marketing automations, you can address your target group very personally and engage them with your organisation. You really get to know each other as candidate and employer, which ensures that you know how to find each other when suitable opportunities arise.
Of course, all these automations cannot completely replace human contact. Besides all the personalised contact that takes place online, it is also important to have real contact from time to time. From person to person. For instance, with a phone call, via WhatsApp or over a cup of coffee. This only needs to be less frequent, as there is already regular personal contact through the automated, online channels.
Ultimately , automation also makes human contact more enjoyable. Recruiters save a lot of time by using recruitment marketing automation, which means they have more time and attention to devote to those human interactions. And when it comes to being personal and building a rapport, everyone knows that a recruiter who takes the time and shows genuine interest in a candidate achieves far more than an overworked recruiter who has to squeeze in a few calls to candidates in between other tasks.
In short, with recruitment marketing automation you can personalise many contact moments with (potential) candidates and thereby offer them a unique candidate journey. One in which they feel heard and seen, which is equal and in which they make their own choices. And in addition, RMA ensures that recruiters have more time and attention for the human contact moments, because many time-consuming tasks are taken over by the software. So automations create a more personalised recruitment process in two ways!
