Yet another Christmas is upon us and wow, what a year it has been. It seems to sneak up super fast and before we know it, we’re putting our ‘out of office’ emails on and cramming in as much fun in the sun as we can get.
But, not so fast! Before you leave your desk and turn off your phone, consider how a little bit of planning can set you up to nail your talent strategy in 2021.
December is a key decision-making time, even for businesses who close down over the Christmas holiday break. This is time for you to relax but to also contemplate what the year ahead will look like. As an employer, planning for 2021 means understanding what you want your employer brand strategy to look like and how this is a key time for potential candidates to consider career or role changes. (I know I get my best ideas after a glass of wine by the pool, especially when I’ve had a good break!)
Having a strategy for the Christmas period is not just for retailers and other industries that need to hire Christmas casuals. This is prime time for recruiters, because as January rolls around, many people have a new job on their New Year’s resolutions list. So, it is up to you to capitalise on it.
What should you be considering?
Don’t turn off fully
If you’ve set up ad campaigns prior to going on leave, then ensure you have automations to respond to applications. Include information about in the advertisements itself. If someone is available to monitor and respond to enquiries over the break, even better.
Candidates can lose track of applications they submit, only to get crickets in response. It’s not a great experience of your brand and it certainly doesn’t inspire candidates to want to work in your organisation.
You’ve just spent a small fortune on ads to get me to submit an application? What The Facebook! Talk about wasting money…
Build that list
Use the break and take advantage of the fact that “change of year” means “change of jobs” for many (yes even in the year of COVID).
Focus on building your talent pool. Prioritise your owned, not rented channels. Consider what you need to put in place to make this work. This could be something as simple as a candidate video series. Your lead magnet should be all about your candidates, NOT YOU!
Schedule content
While you’re sipping pina coladas and getting caught in the rain (or perhaps just binging on Netflix), your content can be working for you. Remember the other important C word – CONSISTENCY. With the many free tools available you have no excuse to not stay visible. Use a scheduler look Publer, Buffer or Hootsuite to schedule social content. Automate your email marketing in whatever cloud-based platform or ATS you’re using. Schedule blogs to be shared on your website. Many things can be automated, which means they’re working while you’re not.
Where to start with your Christmas employer branding content?
Before-Christmas planning
- Get in early to create your Christmas expression of interest forms, employer branding content and campaigns. (That means you should’ve probably started a month ago, but better late than never.) Get creative and think about how you can tie in your employer brand with the festive season.
- Schedule your content using scheduling tools like Buffer as mentioned above. Potential candidates are online even more over a holiday period so put your employer brand in front of them.
- Segment your database – try not to blast your entire talent pool with the same content. Break it into smaller relevant segments so you can share highly relevant content with him. That is what will convert higher. The more relevant, the more likely they are to open and engage with your content.
- Plan your marketing campaigns across all channels – take a holistic approach and consider what traditional and digital channels you need to include in it your marketing.
- Context of content is so important. Make the content seasonal and highly relevant. Think about what people are doing during December and January and create content to suit. Provide value by offering seasonal advice based on your industry.
- Do it now!!! Don’t leave it until 24th December and do half a job.
During your break
- Determine who or how to respond to candidate applications during the holiday period – this is a period when people are relaxing, applying for jobs and planning for the year ahead. Don’t miss opportunities by not responding to DMs.
- If you’re running social media or other ads, RESPOND to candidates’ direct messages and enquiries in a timely manner (for the record, 3 weeks later when you are back from holidays is NOT OK)
- Respond to candidates, even if it is with an autoresponder. Common courtesy doesn’t have a Christmas holiday. Provide candidates with a timeline to establish expectations about when they might get a response from you.
After your holiday
- Candidate enquiries should be responded to quickly – make it a priority
- Review your campaigns and assess metrics so you can analyse the results
- Consider what you can change to make your efforts even more successful next year.
Other Considerations
- Use Christmas hashtags
- Use relevant keywords to be found
- Use humour in your employer branding to stand out
- Use an expression of interest form to capture candidate details if they don’t see an opportunity they’re interested in
- Share your love of your employees and promote them in your employer branding content. A bit of gratitude can go a long way.
Christmas and New Year is the best time of the year for you to capitalise on the emotional changes that bring a surge in new candidates to the market. Consider how you can leverage this festive season to boost your employer branding and recruitment marketing efforts.
Tanya Williams is the pink-loving, sparkly Chief of Everything at Digital Conversations. She wears many hats; entrepreneur, best-selling author, digital trainer, and she is a Social Amplification Specialist with over 20 years’ marketing experience. She works with recruiters to uncover the hidden gold in their existing assets, find ways to leverage every moment of your digital marketing without increasing your marketing budget and amplify your internal champions to increase your visibility. Her goal is to make the hero in your industry sector. She has a simple, no-tech-talk approach and thrives working with established recruitment companies to tap into the opportunities they might miss, using practical & relevant tactics to drive business outcomes.