More candidates with soft conversions
Staffing and recruitment agencies invest heavily in campaigns, but how often do they actually generate applications? Reach and clicks will not keep your business running! To ensure that candidates do not drop out, but take action, use soft conversions. These low-threshold response options set more candidates in motion, allowing you to achieve a higher intake, more placements and ultimately more turnover. Read how to use soft conversions to make your recruitment marketing instantly more profitable.
Money spent, but no candidates
As an agency recruiter, you do everything you can to quickly present the right candidate to your client. But candidates respond less and less to messages from recruiters, while the scarcity in the market remains as high as ever. That is why staffing and recruitment agencies are increasingly deploying recruitment campaigns.
In many cases, these campaigns perform fine when you look at reach and clicks to the website, but the ATS remains empty... Candidates don't apply. On average, only 1% to 3% of those who land on your job page apply. All other candidates drop out because they:
- Have questions about the vacancy or the client;
- Don't have time to fill in an application form at the time;
- Experience applying for a job as a big and exciting step.
As a result, a large pool of potential candidates is lost and advertising budgets are wasted. For staffing and recruitment agencies, it is crucial to get these dropouts into their funnel after all. Because with just reach and clicks, you won't keep your agency running!
Boost conversion with low-threshold responses
If you can encourage 99 out of 100 job visitors to take the first step, your conversion rate will skyrocket. But that step should be as simple, accessible and non-committal as possible. This is where soft conversions come in.
Soft conversions lower the barrier to action. Instead of applying immediately, a candidate can take a smaller step first, such as:
- Starting a WhatsApp conversation with a recruiter to ask questions;
- Set a job alert for relevant vacancies;
- Filling out a short lead form via a social media ad.
These options remove barriers, making it easier for candidates to respond without having to make a big decision straight away. You will find that you get many more responses than before. And once the first contact is made, it often grows into a job application after all!
"We are much more in touch with potential candidates since we started working with soft conversions. In about 7 months, we have received more than 1,100 messages. Gigantic!" - Marieke Zwetsloot, Recruitment & Labour Market Communications Advisor at HMC
What does it deliver?
A quick calculation shows that soft conversions are extremely profitable:
Say you deploy a job campaign with an advertising budget of €1,000. This generates an average of 1,000 website visits. Without soft conversions, 2% of visitors apply, which equates to 20 applicants.
Soft conversions increase conversion to 7%, putting you in touch with 70 candidates. Say you place 1 in 7 candidates on average, in the old situation this results in almost 3 placements, while with soft conversions this increases to 10 placements. This means:
- More candidates without extra advertising costs;
- Lower cost-per-hire;
- Increase revenue through more successful placements.
We also see these kinds of results with our clients. For example, a local recruitment agency that mediates in technical staff speaks to 50 extra candidates per month and from this they have already achieved 5 extra placements in 6 months. A large staffing organisation saw the conversion rate on their recruitment site go from 2% to 5%, with sourcers now focusing on following up incoming messages rather than proactively approaching candidates.
Important: automate follow-up contact with candidates
More contacts also means more follow-ups. To avoid agency recruiters manually spending a lot of time on 1-to-1 contact, automation is essential. With recruitment marketing automation (RMA) software you can:
- Centralise and manage all candidate contact;
- Set up automatic follow-ups, such as a welcome message or qualification questions;
- Automatically match candidates to the right recruiter for smooth follow-up.
This will not only increase speed and efficiency in the process, but also improve the candidate experience and avoid losing talent.
Higher intake with soft conversions
Soft conversions are the way to increase candidate intake and get more results from your recruitment marketing. By making responding more accessible and using smart automation, you increase conversion and fill vacancies faster. Client happy, you happy!
Do you want to maximise your recruitment marketing? Start using soft conversions today!
