The best recruiters can put themselves into the shoes of the candidates their targeting and walk around. Many times recruiters use their instincts, creativity, and experience to get inside the candidate’s head. They use these skills to build relationships to attract the best talent to your company. But imagine how much more effective your top candidates would be if they had data-driven insights to help them understand who they’re targeting and what motivates them. 

Companies like Exelare have this kind of insight from the software we offer to our clients. But LinkedIn did a more general survey recently that will give you a taste of the types of data now available to hiring teams. Let’s take a look and get inside the mind of today’s candidates. 

The LinkedIn Report 

LinkedIn surveyed more than 14,000 users on their platform recently to determine their attitudes and habits around the job-seeking process. They found that: 

  • Candidates want to hear from you frequently. Far too often, a candidate applies to a company and then never hears anything back. The company’s hiring manager or recruiting team needs to promptly let applicants know where they are in the process. 
  • 56% of candidates perceive a hiring manager has more authority than the recruiter. Having a hiring manager reach out will be more likely to gain a candidate’s reply.  
  • When a recruiter reaches out periodically to candidates, even if it is automated, it is perceived positively. 
  • The majority of candidates (63%) are flattered, not annoyed when they hear from recruiters. 
  • 90% of the workers on LinkedIn are open to new job opportunities.  

The study found that candidates prefer having lots of information right up front in the first message. Including job and salary details is vital because it gives candidates what they want. It also helps your recruiting team stay more efficient by focusing on only the candidates that would take the job if it were offered. Why waste time on a phone call if the candidate can’t live with the salary being offered? This is a smart area to automate in your recruiting effort, saving hours of work per recruiter you have on your team. According to the LinkedIn report, the candidate wants the recruiters first message to include: 

  • Job details (89%) 
  • Salary range (72%) 
  • Company overview (69%) 
  • Why they might fit the job (54%) 
  • Job title (54%) 
  • Company cultural details (40%) 
  • Company mission and vision (27%) 

These are critical details for any hiring team to have. But how can you tailor your messaging to give the candidate what they want, but leave enough off the table so they are enticed to respond to your message? Here are three tips to help you attract candidates: 

  1. Personalize the email with “you” and their name. Candidates pay closer attention when an email is personalized. Presenting the job opportunity in a way that shows why they can be a good fit will get their attention over “I have an engineering job that pays X.” Note that automated applicant tracking systems can help send out more messages with this personalized approach, fulfilling the candidate’s wishes to not be treated like a number, but a person.  
  2. If you’re reaching out on LinkedIn, be more specific about why you’re reaching out. Customize your messages, even if they are automated, to give a more personal feel to your inquiry.  
  3. Hold a little something back from the email to entice the candidate to the response. You can use human curiosity to attract more candidates. 

How Can We Help?

Exelare can customize an automated approach to help your recruiting efforts and get you inside your target candidate’s head. We can show you how to search, find, and entice more candidates with human-centric, powerful software automation. This frees up the hiring team’s time so that your recruiters focus in on one-on-one interactions with the right candidates for the right job. Talk to our team today.