In today’s highly competitive recruiting market, convincing public-sector recruiting prospects to actually apply for a job requires unique and powerful selling approaches. So if you’re tired of struggling to reach your recruiting goals, and you’re ready to abandon your traditional cookie-cutter approach, here are the most effective actions for encouraging top applicants to apply (this list was originally developed for the public agencies in the state of Washington — WAPELRA).
The most powerful selling actions for convincing prospects to apply appear first in the list.
If you are offended by the phrase “grow a pair,” you may be part of the problem. Because with record low unemployment rates, we are all currently involved in a “war for talent” where the competition is extremely aggressive. And that means that if you expect to compete against firms like Amazon, Microsoft, Google, or big cities like Seattle for top talent, your recruiting and branding approaches need to be bold. You have no choice but to use recruiting approaches that will startle many. Your agency’s bold recruiting approaches will help build its reputation as an innovative place to work. In fact, the mere use of bold and aggressive recruiting approaches is likely to get you a great deal of free local and state press coverage.
The first step in minimizing this inevitable criticism is to make a strong business case showing the dollar costs and the negative community impacts that result from understaffing and weak hiring at your agency. Also, be prepared to show senior management and the public how other leading-edge agencies have already successfully used similar approaches without any of the hypothesized negative impacts. If you’re not sure about what is meant by aggressive recruiting, it includes bragging about your best features, directly recruiting away top talent from other agencies, and spreading the word using unusual media channels (Amazon once placed recruiting ads on the dating site Tinder).
Recruiting success begins with assuming that most candidates want a job that “makes a difference.” For example, a Harvard study by S. Achor and A. Reece found that 69 percent were motivated by “highly meaningful jobs.” Don’t assume that the reason you can’t compete with private-sector jobs is because of your lower compensation. That same study surprisingly found that workers would sacrifice a whopping “23 percent of their lifetime earnings in order to work in a job that is always meaningful.” Despite a significant pay gap, you can still succeed if your recruitment marketing clearly reveals to applicants that their work will always be meaningful and that they will make a difference. Incidentally, if not being able to offer continually rising compensation is a problem, ask each applicant to force rank a list of job features, and avoid hiring those who rank money first.
Great attraction, like championship fishing, requires you to use the most effective bait. In order to attract the best, you must emphasize the precise “attraction factors” that top prospects use when they decide what jobs to apply for. Unfortunately, because most public-sector recruitment marketing is gut and not data driven, the elements of the job that actually end up being emphasized often have low attraction power. The best organizations survey a target group of applicants to identify their ranked attraction factors. The most powerful ones are then “boasted about” in job postings, job descriptions, and on the agency’s websites.
The best also survey their own top employees to identify “why they stay.” And when you find out that your agency actually has most of the most powerful attraction factors, provide potential applicants with real-life examples from your “story inventory” that verify how attractive your agency and your jobs actually are. Common key attraction factors often include an opportunity to have a high impact, above-average opportunities to grow, exciting operational approaches, and working in a desirable community. Recruiters and managers should also know the common “deal breakers” that discourage applicants, like bureaucracy, old technology, and little training. Recruiters should be trained in how to alleviate any potential fears that applicants might have about these deal-breakers.
You and your colleagues clearly love working at your agency and in your community. But you dramatically hurt your recruiting if an outsider doesn’t share that feeling of excitement. So, to stand out in an intense recruiting competition, test and retest your messaging until it’s extremely easy to find and feel your excitement. Once you identify those excitement factors, use the most powerful words and media channels (including podcasts and videos) so it is instantly easy for outsiders to feel your excitement. Also proactively encourage your employees to make positive comments on employer comment sites like Glassdoor.com to further spread your positive message (Amazon does this).
It’s almost impossible to have a strong competitive advantage in recruiting if you use the exact same tools and approaches as every other agency. The best corporations and agencies use data to identify the most effective approaches for convincing top prospects to apply. Go beyond the traditional cookie-cutter approach of job fairs and “post and pray” on job boards. Instead, emphasize unique “selling approaches” that have been proven to convince top prospects to apply. The most powerful convincing approaches often include employee referrals, compelling videos, texting, employee profiles, side-by-side opportunity comparison sheets, recruiting at professional seminars/conferences, and selling the family on the community.
The best recruiting messages can’t have an impact if they are never seen or read. So the best agencies use data to identify the most effective communications channels and media for reaching top prospects with recruiting and employer branding messages. Start by surveying your own professionals and applicants to identify where they would most likely see and read a recruiting message. Find out if it would be in an article, blog, job board, using CRM tools, or on social media. The best channels often include writing on the Internet, speaking at conferences, text messages, communicating on LinkedIn groups, and video outlets. Have your agency and its practices “talked about” in the channels that your top prospects frequent regularly.
Even when you have a successful attraction process, others will copy it. It must be continually updated so that it provides your agency with a continuing competitive advantage. Periodically make a side-by-side comparison with the recruiting approaches used by your competitors. In the end, your job postings, employer branding, and even your job’s features must appear to be clearly superior in the eyes of applicants.
Top prospects and candidates have so many job choices. Less glamorous agencies and those located in less-popular communities often need more time to sell the best prospects. Extend your selling approach over many months by using a talent pipeline approach. Prospects that “someday might want to work at your agency” are invited to join an online talent community. With this talent community, you have more time to communicate, build trust, and convince members that their next job should be at your agency. Once they join your community, they are usually sent a monthly newsletter, recruiting materials, and notices of relevant job openings. This community should also include applicants that were determined to be promising but that were not hired on their first job application attempt.
After taking the above recruiting actions, if you are still having a hard time getting targeted prospects to apply, here are some additional bold and unique “selling tools” and approaches to consider.
Over the years I have advised hundreds of corporations and public agencies on the most advanced recruiting methods. However, I have personally worked in the public sector for nearly 40 years, and I find it strange that most public agencies assume that they are at a disadvantage in recruiting. In fact, they offer the best chance for making a difference, helping the environment, and improving the lives of every citizen in their community. At least to me, that makes a job that involves simply moving gigabytes of meaningless data a few nanoseconds faster at a firm like Google seem dull by comparison.
Author’s Note: If this article stimulated your thinking and provided you with actionable tips, follow or connect with me on LinkedIn, subscribe to the ERE Daily, and hear me and others speak at ERE’s Recruiting Conference in October in Washington, D.C.
