Tell passive candidates what you can do for them not what they can do for you
21 January 2015
Talking about prospective employees’ skills rather than focusing on the recruiting company’s needs is one of the techniques that can quadruple passive candidate response rates, according to Johnny Campbell, chief sourcing ‘ninja’ at Social Talent.
Wed, 21 Jan 2015Talking about prospective employees’ skills rather than focusing on the recruiting company’s needs is one of the techniques that can quadruple passive candidate response rates, according to Johnny Campbell, chief sourcing ‘ninja’ at Social Talent.
Campbell, whose company provides online and social media training for recruiters, told delegates at the In-house Recruitment Expo in London’s Olympia this week that for every 10 passive candidates resourcers contact, just 17% respond on average.
However, he added, resourcing professionals can quadruple their success rate by using the phone to follow up on emails sent, limiting email subject lines to three words and sending mails at 6am on a Sunday, as fewer emails are sent on this day than any other day of the week.
Campbell also advises resourcers to use email tracking services to find out if an email has been opened, while also using words like ‘you’ or ‘your’ in the email body text, as these words engage people over words like ‘I’ or ‘we’.
“The language you use is unbelievably important,” he said.
“You could say ‘I want to talk about you working for us. We’re looking for people who can do blah blah blah. We want to bring people to join the team’,” Campbell added.
“However, you could try saying ‘I have looked at your experience and I think if you were to take on this role you would be developed as a programmer to do x, y and z. You will be able to use the skills you gained in college to develop your knowledge and I think you will be able to do x, y and z’.”
Campbell, whose company provides online and social media training for recruiters, told delegates at the In-house Recruitment Expo in London’s Olympia this week that for every 10 passive candidates resourcers contact, just 17% respond on average.
However, he added, resourcing professionals can quadruple their success rate by using the phone to follow up on emails sent, limiting email subject lines to three words and sending mails at 6am on a Sunday, as fewer emails are sent on this day than any other day of the week.
Campbell also advises resourcers to use email tracking services to find out if an email has been opened, while also using words like ‘you’ or ‘your’ in the email body text, as these words engage people over words like ‘I’ or ‘we’.
“The language you use is unbelievably important,” he said.
“You could say ‘I want to talk about you working for us. We’re looking for people who can do blah blah blah. We want to bring people to join the team’,” Campbell added.
“However, you could try saying ‘I have looked at your experience and I think if you were to take on this role you would be developed as a programmer to do x, y and z. You will be able to use the skills you gained in college to develop your knowledge and I think you will be able to do x, y and z’.”
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