Over the last 10 years, we’ve heard so much about Employer Brand, EVP and more recently creating engaging video, info graphic and meme content to engage the best talent and be one step ahead of the competition. HR, Talent and Resourcing professionals have spent big money on new careers sites and content across traditional, online and more recently digital media and we can now even tag and track candidates so we can really understand how much bang for our buck we get. This is all visible stuff so why wouldn’t we do it, right? BUT, are we still missing a trick?

Now let me ask you another question. Would you like a glossy all singing, all dancing media campaign? Or would you like a campaign that delivers results. You will of course, want to deliver on your goals which may be to;

• have 500 hires in place by December. Or
• grow and develop your talent pool for succession planning

I speak to a lot of HR, Talent and Resourcing professionals who say they are not seeing the expected quality or volume of candidates come through. My first question is to ask why and most say they feel it is down to the wrong creative or attraction campaign, which can of course be the case. However so many times when I dig beneath the surface it is the process that is the problem.

For example, you track and tag your candidate journey from the advertising source or website right? What happens once they get to your applicant tracking system or customer relationship management system? Do they disappear into a black hole?

Beyond this, how do you manage your candidates once they are in the process (or black hole)?

I’ve met with a lot of HR, Talent and Resourcing professionals whose organisations quickly progress candidates through the process. They maintain a high level of engagement either in person (via telephone) or through online platforms and video content. These organisations will tell you about their conversion ratios at each stage (how few candidates drop out of the process) and how much more engaged the candidates were in the process. However the key thing they will tell you is the quality of their hire and future hires from the talent pool is so high.

So I ask the question, where do you spend most of your Talent Attraction budget and are you confident you get the return on investment? If the answer is no, then maybe it’s time to re-evaluate