Last week we hosted our annual EMEA event in Marbella, Spain and were fortunate to have both Vanessa Raath and Sharon Newey as the featured presenters. Both offered plenty of practical tips for recruiters: Vanessa’s centered around her three pillars of successful recruiting and using Generative AI; Sharon focused on marketing using the lead generation triad of content marketing, current connections, and cold outreach. I’d like to share some of my favorite take-aways from each presentation.
Maximizing Response Rates from Passive Candidates and Practical AI Applications in Recruitment (Vanessa Raath)
Van’s presentation began with her three pillars of successful recruiting:
- Have a solid digital presence – whether you like it or not, you have/are a personal brand. Candidates and clients will cross-reference you in multiple places on the web, so it’s crucial that your digital presence is robust.
- Find candidates that others can’t – while many recruiters rely heavily on LinkedIn, it’s certainly not the only (and may not be the best) site for finding candidates. A tool like Napoleoncat shows you how many people, by country, are users of a particular site.
- Compose a compelling message that passive talent will respond to – of the tips for recruiters in this chunk was this gem: Per Textio, email response drops by a shocking 80% when you include sentences like “I came across your profile on LinkedIn.”
My favorite tip about how to use Generative AI was this: Use it to go from 0% to 60% or from 75% to 100%. So, use it as a way to get started, let it do the bulk of the work, and then proofread, edit, and finalize it yourself. Or, take your rough draft and let AI make it better. This mirrors my own use of AI tools, but this was a much more concise way to think about it.
Unlocking Business Opportunities: The Power of Cold Outreach, Current Connections, and Content Marketing (Sharon Newey)
Sharon discussed marketing tips for recruiters that can help create business opportunities over time.
- Content creation – Once you’ve created a piece of content, leverage it by using it multiple ways and post it multiple times. Reshare once weekly over a 12-week period (unless it is time sensitive).
- Current connections – Your current connections are the easiest path for additional business. Ask for referrals or introductions, promote a new offer, upsell or cross-sell.
- Cold outreach – Persistence is key; messaging should always be about your audience FIRST, so talk about their pain or problem before jumping in with your sales pitch.
Use the PAS or PASA marketing technique:
- Pain/Problem
- Agitate (consequences – pain or pleasure)
- Solution (how you can help)
- Action (don’t forget to include the next step or call-to-action)