Supercharge Your Hiring:

Plug Bluetown into your Process.

Recruitment has become fast-paced and competitive, we all seem to be getting a lot of applications, however, finding the right talent can be a daunting task. Traditional recruitment methods can fall short or increasing costs making it unfeasible. It’s become essential for companies to adopt new strategies.

Couple of Strategy that we’ve been using internally on top of advertising would be leveraging more job boards, and tech to speed up the process. This you can reach a broader audience, attract high-quality candidates and fill roles more efficiently.

Here's how we can transform your recruitment with Premium Advertising and Connect:

1. Broadening Your Reach

Advertising allows you to extend your reach far beyond your immediate network. By placing job ads on popular job boards, social media platforms and specialist/ niche websites you can widen your audience, attracting diverse pool of candidates.

Benefits:

• Increasing Visibility: We’re at a point where job advertising has become like investing – you need to hedge your bets and not put all your eggs in one basket. Candidates have their preference so getting yourself on all the boards you’ll see a significant increase in not only applications… but relevant ones.
• Targeted Audiences: Specialised job boards (e.g., tech, engineering, marketing) help you reach candidates with specific skills. Sometimes especially within in Finance and Engineering we do see these boards can make the campaign a successful one or a disappointing exercise!  
• Social Media Power: Platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram can target candidates already within your network. Show that you’re recruiting to the people that follow you and want to be part of your business – this not only includes socials but, on your website, do you have a Careers Page? If not let us put one together for you!

2. Targeted Advertising

One of the greatest advantages of modern advertising is the ability to target specific demographics and skill sets. By using specialist job boards as well as the leading boards, you can ensure your job ads are seen by the most relevant candidates.

Strategies:

• Specialist Advertising: You’ll see this a lot throughout this blog – specialist job boards are great for finding more specialised candidates… just makes sense, doesn’t it?
• Geo-Targeting: Posting to a specific town or city will mean your advert is seen by more relevant candidates and people within the area where you’ll be working. STOP POSTING NATIONAL JOBS…!

3. Enhancing Employer Branding

Effective advertising not only promotes job vacancies but also enhances your employer brand. Consistent and compelling job ads, careers pages and candidate experience help build your company’s reputation as a desirable place to work.

Tips for Strong Employer Branding:

• Visual Appeal: Not only do you need to make sure that you’re using branded adverts but also engaging images and videos on careers pages / adverts to showcase your what you’re all about.
• Employee Testimonials: Highlight positive experiences from current employees to attract like-minded candidates. If you don’t want to ask your team, have a look at Glass Door…
• Candidate Experience:  I feel those that offer a streamlined, well communicated interview/recruitment process have more of the top talent are available at the end of the process but these candidates are also open to being contacted again if not successful. Keep the door open to top talent don’t put them off because of poor process!!
• Consistent Messaging: Ensure all job ads reflect your company’s values, culture, and mission. If you’re a fun-loving company don’t post an ad full of corporate “Your responsibilities are” and vice versa… don’t post an ad full of puns if you’re looking for a Corporate Accountant.

4. Improving Candidate Quality

Sometimes it’s hard to just increase Quality without increasing Quantity however higher-quality candidates who are better suited to your roles need to see your advert... By reaching the right audience, it doesn’t matter if you have a high quantity if you’re using the right ATS… That’ll allow you to focus on those with the skills and experience you need but still be respectful. You can also then use things like Video Questionnaires to find diamonds in the rough and make sure you’re interviewing the right candidates.

How to Improve Candidate Quality:

• Clear Job Adverts: Write precise and detailed job adverts that set clear expectations. What do they get, why do they want to work for you and what are the expectations (not responsibilities… expectations!)
• Keywords: Use relevant keywords to ensure your ads appear in appropriate searches. Let’s face it companies love making up titles (just look at my LinkedIn) I’ve had 20 titles all doing a similar role…
• Pre-Screening Questions: Include pre-screening questions in your job ads or use video questionnaires so that you’re able to look past some CVs to help filter out unqualified candidates early or find some gems you may not have considered.

5. Measuring and Optimising Performance

One of the key advantages of digital advertising and a good ATS is the ability to track and measure the performance of your job adverts and wider recruitment campaigns.

Key Metrics to Track:

• Applications: Measure how many applications you’re getting from various sources.
• Source Effectiveness: Determine which platforms yield the highest quality applicants.
• Time to Hire: Sometimes you have a timeline in mind but how long did it take you last time? Did you think “oh we’ll get someone quick!” and forget about the 5 stage interview your Director loves or their 3 month notice period?
• Time at Each Stage: Let’s face it – sometimes we have other fires to put out… but keeping a new application without any contact can mean they find something else or just get put off. Or have you interviewed someone a week ago with no feedback?

Optimisation Tips:

• A/B Testing: Test different ad variations to see which performs best (sometimes it’ll take a couple of months to hire – make some amends and learn from the applications you’re receiving).
• Continuous Improvement: Regularly review and adjust your ad strategy and process based on performance data.

Conclusion

Incorporating advertising and an ATS into your recruitment strategy is a powerful way to enhance your hiring efforts. You’ll broaden your reach, targeting specific audiences, enhance your employer brand, improving candidate quality and allow you to continually improve your approach and process. Hope this helps you attract and hire the best talent in this competitive job market.

Remember: Advertising is not just about filling vacancies; it's about building a strong, dynamic workforce that drives your company’s success. Start leveraging the power of advertising and technology in your recruitment process today and watch your talent pool grow with high-quality candidates ready to contribute.

Bluetown offers Premium Advertising packages and Connect, our Applicant Tracking System (ATS). If you’d like a quote on advertising or demo of Connect call Ollie on +44 (0)203 832 6999, Email oliver.samkin@bluetownonline.co.uk or book an appointment using the link below:

https://bluetown.simplybook.it/v2/#book/service/1/count/1/provider/26/