Unable to find qualified candidates for available roles at your company? You're not the only one. Attracting and retaining the desired candidates is becoming more difficult than ever.
Solution? Optimizing the Recruitment Process!
Streamlining the hiring process can improve candidate satisfaction, save resources, boost productivity, and hire quality candidates. Moreover, a well-optimized recruitment process can help to improve your employer's brand and ensure compliance with legal and regulatory obligations.
But how do you find the ideal candidate in the first place?
A well-written job description (JD)!
A JD is usually the first point of contact an applicant has with your organization, so making a good first impression is critical. It states the role's expectations, describes the skills required, and outlines the duties. You can attract top people and ensure a better match by tapping into the power of well-drafted JDs.
So, are you ready to optimize your hiring process and attract top talent?
This blog will discuss leveraging the potential value of a well-written job description!
Why Invest In Job Descriptions?
JDs serve as a guideline for picking the best candidate for the job!
But what if your JDs are not drafted correctly?
- Poor Candidate Experience
- Hamper Employer Brand
- Attract Unqualified Candidates
A poorly written JD can negatively impact recruitment efforts!
- It can cause confusion and misunderstandings between recruiters and candidates owing to an inaccurate description of job duties and expectations. This results in dissatisfaction and resignations, as well as decreased retention rates.
- It can negatively impact the employer brand because candidates with terrible experiences are likelier to tell others about it, resulting in a bad reputation.
- It can attract unqualified candidates or discourage qualified individuals from applying, wasting the recruiter's time and resources.
- Attract Desired Candidates
- Facilitate Hiring Decision
- Save Resources
- Promote Diversity and Inclusion
- Build Employer Brand
Case Study: How a well-written JD enabled a company to hire the ideal candidate
Problem: Difficulty attracting and retaining qualified candidates for unfilled positions
XYZ company, a rising startup in the IT field, received many resumes for each job posting. However, the majority of the applicants were unsuitable for the position.
The organization recognized that their job descriptions were ineffective.
- They did not clarify the job's needs and responsibilities
- They did not highlight the company culture and values.
- The language was not inclusive, discouraging diverse candidates from applying.
Solution: Modernise their JDs to make them comprehensive and appealing
- The new JDs made it simpler for candidates to screen and qualify themselves by explicitly outlining the abilities, qualifications, and experience needed for the position.
- The language employed was unbiased and inclusive, emphasizing the job's needs. They ensured inclusive language to attract a diverse pool of candidates.
- The new JDs also provided a clear knowledge of the company's culture and values, highlighting the company's benefits and opportunities and promoting the brand.
Result: The company improved candidate quality and employer branding while facilitating better hiring decisions.
- The company got fewer resumes, but the ones they did get were from highly qualified individuals who were a terrific fit for the job and the company culture.
- The candidates who applied were also delighted with the hiring process because they understood the job requirements and company culture.
- Candidates gave the organization excellent feedback on their JDs, which improved their employer branding.
- The organization was able to attract passive job seekers who were drawn in by the JD that precisely suited their skills and qualifications.
- The well-written JD assisted the organization in attracting the best candidate and making sound hiring selections.
- The new staff was an excellent fit for the organization, and their knowledge and expertise contributed greatly to its success. This resulted in higher retention and lower employee turnover.
To summarise, a well-written JD can attract the right candidates, save time and resources, assist in better recruiting decisions, increase company branding, and promote diversity and inclusion. Businesses should put time and effort into developing successful JDs to recruit and retain desired candidates.
How To Attract The Ideal Candidate With Personalized JDs?
Panel 1:
Recruiter 1: We need a new job description to attract top talent.
Recruiter 2: Let's personalize!
Panel 2:
Recruiter 1: We'll add their name, their favorite color, and...oh wait, that's not what we mean by personalization.
Recruiter 2: We have to tailor the job requirements to their skills and experience, highlighting the aspects of the job that are most important to them. That way, we'll attract top talent who fit the job perfectly.
Panel 3:
Employee: So, you won't ask for my favourite colour?
Recruiter: Only if it's relevant to the job.
Customized JDs are like engaging in conversation with the candidate, stressing the areas of the job that are most critical to them and illustrating how their abilities and experience align with the job requirements.
Personalization in job descriptions (JDs) is developing a description tailored to job requirements and the candidate's qualifications. This includes thoroughly examining job requirements and the candidate's talents and expertise to draft a JD that calls attention. A well-crafted, customized JD can help you discover the best fit for the job while strengthening your employer brand and attracting top candidates.
Why Personalize JDs?
- Better Candidate Quality
- Increased Applicant Engagement
- Enhanced Employer Brand
- Save Resources
- Reduce Employee Turnover
Imagine hundreds and thousands of unread emails. You receive a cold email from a candidate interested in working with your company. The email is irrelevant to the vacancies and the company and focuses only on candidate qualifications and skills. It stresses only the candidate’s strengths and doesn’t reflect how they can cater to the business goals.
Would you reply to such a generic cold email?
No!
Just like you won’t be pleased by a generic cold email, no matter how qualified the candidate is, you can not entice top candidates with a basic job description. Here are 5 reasons you must spend an extra few hours personalizing your JDs.
- Better Candidate Quality: Recruiters can use a targeted approach to attract candidates with the essential skills, qualifications, and experience by customizing JDs. Recruiters can entice desired candidates by emphasizing the job's requirements. This increases the probability of attracting high-quality individuals to contribute to the company's success.
- Increased Applicant Engagement: Potential candidates are more likely to engage with personalized job vacancies. Recruiters can draw candidates' attention and enhance candidate engagement by customizing the job description to match their skills and expertise. This leads to a wider pool of qualified candidates!
- Enhanced Employer Brand: Enhanced employer branding: Customized job descriptions enable recruiters to express the company's unique employer brand and values. Recruiters can establish a positive perception of the firm in the minds of potential applicants by emphasizing the company's culture, values, and mission.
- Save Resources: Hiring time and costs can be lowered using a more effective recruitment procedure. By attracting qualified candidates with customized job descriptions, recruiters can save time and money on the hiring process. This frees up recruiters' time for other vital responsibilities like onboarding and employee engagement.
- Reduce Employee Turnover: Customized job descriptions can result in lower turnover and higher retention of high-performing employees. When candidates are driven to a position that is a good fit for their qualifications, experience, and career aspirations, they are more likely to be satisfied and stay with the organization in the long run.
Recruiters that take the time to adjust job descriptions to the job's unique criteria and the candidate's qualifications and experience are more likely to attract top prospects and establish a strong workforce for their firm.
Personalizing JDs
- Define and Analyze the Ideal Candidate
- Use Relevant Keywords
- Focus on Company Culture and Values
- Avoid Generic JDs/ Templates
- Use Inclusive Language
- Deploy Multimedia Elements
Are you buried under the weight of unqualified applicants and want to cut through the spam?
Customized JDs can assist you in filtering out unwanted noise and finding the appropriate prospect. It includes customizing the job description for each individual and role. You will not only attract the best candidates, but you will also significantly improve candidate experience and engagement. Here are a few pointers to get you started:
- Define and Analyze Ideal Candidate: Before diving deep into personalizing JD, you must understand the audience. Evaluate their interests, qualifications, and experience to customize the JD to their specific requirements and preferences. Doing this can enhance engagement and draw in the best prospects.
- Use Relevant Keywords: Include relevant keywords related to the role and industry. This makes the job description more accessible in search results and attracts the candidate's attention.
- Focus on Company Culture and Values: Top applicants care equally about the company culture and values as much as the job itself. Highlighting these qualities helps potential candidates understand the organization's culture and can entice people who align with such principles.
- Avoid Generic JDs: The job description should be customized for the position, considering the required experience and specifications. Avoid generic templates, and customize each with a proper CTA (Call To Action).
- Use Inclusive Language: Using inclusive language will help you draw in a wide range of candidates. Avoid biased language and instead focus on abilities and qualifications to eliminate discrimination and attract candidates from underrepresented groups.
- Deploy Multimedia Elements: Employ multimedia components such as films, infographics, or photographs to make the JD more compelling. This assists candidates in visualizing the role and the organization, which will boost candidate involvement and set clear expectations.
Drafting Personalized JDs On Scale With NurtureBox
Finding the ideal candidate and sending the same message to hundreds of them is run-of-the-mill for recruiters!
But, hey, we understand that reaching out to many candidates is critical. The idea is to strike a balance between quantity and quality.
Customization is the key to differentiating your outreach from the crowd. By personalizing your message to the candidate and emphasizing what makes them the ideal candidate for the job, you increase your chances of finding the appropriate candidate and also demonstrate that you care. So, stop copying and pasting and start personalizing!
But how can one possibly personalize hundreds of JDs without risking their sanity?
NurtureBox: The Ultimate Solution To Personalizing Job Descriptions On Scale!
NurtureBox is an AI-powered tool that can make writing job descriptions a breeze. Recruiters can quickly input job cues into our intuitive interface and generate a job description matched to the specific requirements within seconds.
Moreover, the platform offers a well-organized dashboard that makes it easy for recruiters to manage multiple JDs during peak recruiting seasons. From updating an old JD to creating a new one from the start, NurtureBox ensures that the finished JD is visually appealing and features all of the necessary information to attract the ideal prospects.
Amidst today’s noisy digital world, brands find it challenging to create meaningful connections with their customer base and target audience. Getting the target consumer’s attention and persuading them to buy from you gets even trickier. Hence, content marketing has become more crucial than ever for brands to attract, educate, and retain customers.
Content creation is a top priority for 80% of marketers, and there is no reason it shouldn’t be. Consistent, high-quality, and engaging content impacts your audience’s decisions through education and persuasion.
Depending on your business goals and requirements, the role of Content Marketers you hire will vary. The primary responsibilities revolve around forming consistent brand messaging and deciding upon a unique and identifiable voice, style, and pitch across various distribution channels.
From raising brand awareness to attracting a relevant audience to your website, boosting social media presence and engagement, generating leads, and building brand loyalty – content marketing drives all the growth efforts for your brand. When done effectively, it can help you:
- Build positive brand awareness
- Make your audience stick around for longer
- Get better traction on social media
- Gain more trust of your audience than ever
- Generate qualified leads
- Improve conversion rates
- Boost business visibility with SEO
- Position your brand as an authority
- Cultivate loyal brand fans
While content marketing is a broad role with numerous areas of expertise involved, it’s vital to thoroughly understand your company’s current marketing goals and the related requirements. In this blog, we will dive deep into the step-by-step approach to hiring a Content Marketer.
What is The Role of a Content Marketer?
A Content Marketer must be deeply passionate about telling your brand’s story to the world. The objective is to educate and nurture the target audience to establish brand authority using thought-leadership and drive more people to buy from you.
As a candidate is expected to be a mediator between the brand and the target audience, they are primarily responsible for planning, creating, and sharing valuable content to grow their company’s awareness and engagement to bring more business.
To be more specific, the role of a Content Marketer requires a perfect blend of creativity and attention to detail in an individual. It’s a balancing role, as they need to ensure creating content that resonates and strengthens business relationships, using strategies that position your business as authentic and problem-solving.
Take a look at the core responsibilities of a Content Marketer that most businesses expect them to take over:
- Research and Competitor Analysis: The first and foremost step to creating a content marketing strategy is effective initial research. It not only helps a Content Marketer understand the nuances of the industry through competitor analysis but also study and understand the target audience thoroughly.
- Building Content Marketing Plans: Once the competitor research and target audience analysis is done, a Content Marketer needs to work on the different plans for all the business objectives, targeted channels, segments of the audience, and the bigger marketing strategy. A content marketing plan typically consists of:
- Specific goals along with a pre-decided timeline
- Various channels to be targeted for content distribution
- Types of content to be created
- Budget for the entire staff, outsourced services, and paid promotion (Collabs and Ads)
- Creating Editorial Calendar: Creating, managing, and maintaining a content calendar is one of the most crucial responsibilities of a Content Marketer. It is a centralized visual document that enables effective collaboration among the marketing team and helps Content Marketers ensure on-time production and delivery.
- Content Creation: Once the strategy and calendar have been approved by relevant stakeholders, Content Marketers need to do the on-ground work. This task usually depends on the scale of your company and content marketing strategy. Suppose an organization already has a set of writers, then the Content Marketer doesn’t need to create content by themselves.
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Producing quality content that educates your target audience and resonates with them, isn’t enough. You need to optimize your content creation to make it search engine-friendly. While most companies need a dedicated SEO specialist for keyword research and planning, Content Marketers need to closely collaborate with them and should be well-versed in the basics of SEO.
While the practices discussed above are primary responsibilities of a Content Marketer, they also need to be proactive with
- Content editing and ensuring adherence to a certain style guide
- Continous publishing and distributing content
- Measuring and analyzing performance
How to Hire a Content Marketer: Step-By-Step?
Content marketing has become the key to driving growth for businesses. Unlike a few years ago, it’s not possible now to get away with a one-person team for content marketing. You need deeply trained individuals for specialist roles.
Let’s now dive into the step-by-step approach of hiring a Content Marketer. But before you even source your first candidate, you should have a clear expectation of the skillset and experience to look out for top content marketing candidates.
Top Must-Have Skills in a Content Marketer
Apart from having relevant industry experience, a good Content Marketer must possess the following skills.
- Excellent Writing Skills
A Content Marketer’s prior skillset should be writing excellent attention-grabbing content. From long-form blog posts to website copy, ad copies, social media content, video scripts, emails, newsletters, e-books, whitepapers, and more – a Content Marketer should be able to adapt to the business’s specific requirements and create quality content.
- Audience Research
Identifying user behavior is vital for framing the story in the right direction. So a Content Marketer must know how to identify and analyze the needs and pain points to develop a buyer persona. User research can be performed through social listening, relevant communities, in-person calls with customers, analyzing sales call recordings, and more.
- Keyword Research
Creating valuable thought-leadership content isn’t enough. Researching the right set of keywords is an essential skill to further educate your target audience on the Whys, Hows and Whats of your business, and have your website rank on Google.
- Data-oriented Content
Content that’s not backed by relevant data points does not build enough trust. Experienced content marketing professionals would always prefer data over hollow claims. No doubt that only data doesn’t help a content piece succeed, but it’s essential..
- Project Management, Planning, and Publishing –
A Content Marketer is also expected to break down and analyze the pain points to turn keyword research into content ideas. So a professional must be able to identify and solve content gaps.
Further, they must know how to create a content calendar, decide the different types of content, and choose relevant platforms to publish and schedule marketing campaigns.
- Content Promotion
Creating a valuable content piece, for example - an ebook, isn’t enough. Your content marketing team needs to promote it proactively for bringing enough attention and engagement.
- Performance Analysis
Setting up goals and plans is one thing, but continuously executing, measuring, and analyzing content performance is another. A Content Marketer should always be monitoring key performance parameters to figure out the upcoming plans with the necessary updates required.
Not to forget - stakeholders and marketing heads need the performance reports regularly. So Content Marketers must be able to collect and comprehend all the data to make it worth presenting.
Step 1: Create a Candidate Persona
Let’s sort out the priorities first, and decide the type of content marketing candidates you want to recruit. From exceptional research skills to storytelling, communication skills, relationship building, audience engagement, and more capabilities must be comprehensively considered. Identify and break down the skill requirements for Content Marketers:
- What are the educational qualification criteria for the role?
- How many years and what type of work experience do you want in candidates?
- What are the specific skill sets you’re looking for?
- Which industry experience would you primarily prefer?
- Are there any tools your candidates should be hands-on with?
- What are some personality traits that will fit your company?
- Where do they look for a new job?
- What are their career and life goals?
Forming a candidate persona by answering all these questions would ensure you are not shooting in the dark while sourcing candidates. Further, it helps you determine the traits of the ideal candidate, and plan your sourcing and recruitment strategy further.
Step 2: Document the Role Requirements and Decide on Your Recruiting Process
Next step is determining your role requirements suiting primarily to organizational needs and business goals. A content marketing professional is expected to own the entire content strategy, creation, and distribution. But what about your business’s unique requirements?
You might need someone comfortable with frequently creating long-form content pieces like blogs, ebooks, or whitepapers, or creating engaging video content based on your industry trends.
Talk to various relevant stakeholders for seeking the complete detailed company requirements for the role.
Before you enter the recruitment funnel, outline your talent acquisition process. Identify various strategies, channels, and other informational insights you would need – and maintain a collaborative document.
As you update the tactics and tweak your recruitment process for meeting hiring requirements optimally – keep your document up to date.
Step 3: Prepare a Content Marketing Job Description
Once you have finalized the role requirements with respect to your current content marketing goals and team, you can start sourcing candidates. Preparing the job description is the first task you’ll need to do.
Here are the necessary components you must have in your job description:
- Job Title: The position you’re looking to fill. For example - Content Marketing Specialist or Content Marketing Manager.
- Roles & Responsibilities: An outline of the candidate’s day-to-day activities. From ideation to implementation and the impact on the organization, everything should be covered.
- Skill Requirements: Skills and abilities a candidate must have to perform the job successfully.
- Perks and Benefits: The compensation details, perks of the job, and any other benefits.
- About the Company: Why should a candidate consider working with your company?
Content Marketer Job Description Template
Role
The job of a Content Marketer is to perform competitor research, create user persona, and write plagiarism-free content for blog articles, social media, and the company website. They need to stay updated on the latest SEO techniques.
Responsibilities
- Develop, write and deliver persuasive copy for the website, email marketing campaigns, sales collateral, videos, and blogs
- Build and manage an editorial calendar; coordinate with other content crafters to ensure standards
- Measure impact and perform analysis to improve KPIs
- Include and optimize all content for SEO
- Contribute to the localization of processes and content to ensure consistency across regions
- Review and implement process changes to drive operational excellence
Requirements
- Proven content marketing, copywriting, or SEO experience
- Working knowledge of content management systems like WordPress
- A well-maintained portfolio of published articles, blogs, copy, etc
- Proven experience of working under pressure to deliver high quality output in a short span of time
- Proficiency in all Microsoft Office applications, Google Suite
- Fluency in English or any other required language
Soft Skills
- Excellent verbal and written communication skills
- Excellent writing and editing skills
- The ability to work in a fast-paced environment
- The ability to handle multiple projects concurrently
- Strong attention to detail and the ability to multi-task projects and deliverables
Step 4: Source Candidates
Once you have the tailored job description in hand, it’s now time to do the groundwork and source candidates. Create an attractive job post to promote your job across job boards and social channels.
- Begin with what to expect from the role at your company?
- Why should candidates apply for the position?
- Highlight the growth opportunities
- State the company vision and mission
- Briefly describe the recruitment process
Prepare an impactful job post and also execute paid job ad campaigns if required. The next step would be promoting your jobs on various job boards and hiring platforms. You can leverage the following platforms for hiring Content Marketers:
- LinkedIn
- Indeed
- Instahyre
- ZipRecruiter
- Monster
- GlassDoor
- CareerBuilder
Not to forget - almost 3/4th of the workforce includes passive candidates, so you cannot miss out on passive talent sourcing as well. Reach out to qualified candidates on communities, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even Facebook to offer them suitable opportunities.
Step 5: Evaluate Candidates and Interview Shortlisted Ones
Once you have filtered candidates based on their experience and skills listed on their profile, it’s time to evaluate them deeply. Ask them to create a content strategy for your website, along with a value-adding content piece like a small blog. The topic of the article must fall within the scope of the strategy.
Interview the candidates whose profiles got shortlisted. Keep in mind the parameters covering skills, relevant experience, and personality traits of candidates.
Step 5: Make the Hire
Reach out to selected Content Marketers and communicate about the compensation.
Further, extend your offer letter to all the candidates who have been selected. In the case of passive sourcing, extend to only those who were aligned with you on the compensation and are willing to move forward.
Ensure having a deadline for the joining date and mention the necessary documents required by your recruiting team.
- Get the required documents and set up the offer agreements with candidates
- Organize an orientation session for the onboarded candidates
- Introduce them to the entire team and the marketing teams they will be working with
- Guide the new candidates about your company management tools and communication channels
- Provide candidates with forms for benefits and perks like Health Insurance.
Supercharge Your Hiring for Content Marketer with Nurturebox
Inbound candidate sourcing doesn’t work effectively anymore. Do you also find challenges in closing quality candidates through job posts even after spending on ads?
Don’t worry, passive candidate sourcing can be an optimal solution for hiring top content marketing candidates.
Nurturebox is a one-stop talent sourcing and engagement platform which is powered by automation. Here’s how you can source product managers from LinkedIn using Nurturebox:
- Install the Nurturebox Chrome plugin and sign up.
- On your LinkedIn profile, start sourcing Content Marketers with boolean searches stating the required experience from targeted locations and including other criteria
- Add the qualified candidates to your sourcing campaign pipeline with just a click
- Automate the candidate engagement through email, Whatsapp and LinkedIn direct messages for reaching out and nurturing candidates at scale.
