How do you establish a relationship? You can't have a meaningful relationship without conversations and you need to align on context to start the conversation. Only then can the ongoing conversation become the relationship, right?

In the following two-part series, we will introduce two playbooks to make this happen:

• Candidate Marketing Playbook 1 of 2: How to Introduce & Attract Relationships
• Candidate Marketing Playbook 2 of 2: How to Inform and Nurture Relationships

How do you make an opportunity pop up on someone else's radar? In our digital world, sentiment signaling pretends to be conversation but it isn't replacing meaningful conversation. 

Notice when you ‘like’ a connection’s post, you’ll usually receive a response ‘like’ on one of your posts or you’ll even get a quick endorsement? Its embedded in our human nature give back kindness after kindness is received. Sentiments are flying everywhere! How do we hone in on these sentiments, organize them, and align content with context to establish a new, two-way connection? The challenge is real.

Our preferences and expectations will keep changing as modalities do. When I say modality, I mean the method by which we communicate (ie telephone, cell, text, chat, video, snap, insta-share, post, slack). We can scale our sentiments to people we never had access to before. We can automate and personalize them. Who doesn’t love emoticons? We can go crazy with our sentiments.

Haven’t we minimized the sincerity behind a real smile by digitizing it?

The benefits of evolving beyond an analogue state of relationship should empower us but instead of increasing our relationship dynamics, we struggle with context, one of the key ingredients to making a connection real and meaningful. How do you create an inception in your prospect's internal dialogue that sincerely answers the question, "What's in it for me?"  That is our sincere goal.  Let me provide some context:

In earlier days, we communicated in a singular fashion using one of the methods - morse code, wire, radio waves, phone, in-person, or we used a string of humans to relay a message from one person to another. However, we couldn't do them all at once, so, we were prepared on the approach. We knew how to handle the traveling salesperson who knocked on our door or the sales pro with the gift of the gab who called us at work. The intention behind these exchanges was singular and we knew what to expect. 

Our thirty second commercial mattered. Not so much, anymore.

We're not living in a singular state of communication anymore. Today, we are receiving signals and sentiments from several modalities at any given time so we protect ourself by deciding who is in our 1st, 2nd, and 3rd degree of networks. Whoever we think is safest gets more access to us. We also sacrifice privacy in this process. We prefer the choice to accept or decline the approach used long before the conversation actually begins. We aren’t even prepared for an exchange without our subtle consent unless the modality in which we receive the attempt is minimal in nature, like an email. 

Even then, we feel crossed when we are approached in an impersonal way. The modern professional buyer (aka candidate) has developed a desire for a sense of awareness and an understanding of context before engaging into conversation. Lets zero in on the conversation before we worry about building a relationship.

How do we get the conversation going?

If you wish to grow as a professional you must come to terms with reality and understand that we are never returning to an analogue state of communication. So, how do we string together all the different communication methods we access and align them with intent and a meaningful message inspiring receivers to put us on their radar with an interested, purpose-driven reply. Let me show you.

Check out this basic workflow that you can create using a platform or combination of the right tools and automation to introduce and attract someone to an opportunity, so you can deliver context and intent in a meaningful way.

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But that's not it!!! Once you've established dialogue with a prospect, you'll need to inform and nurture your delicate prospect. That's what we will cover in our follow up segment. Stay tuned and we'll teach you how to inform on and nurture new relationships using candidate marketing!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

James Chmielinski is a second generation recruiting veteran, former baseball player, and founder of Veruca.io, the first ever recruiting innovations lab. His company is built from two generations of sales and recruiting experience resting on the backbone of post-millennial technology.  

Last year, Veruca.io: Find (Mr. Chmielinski's inaugural software) attracted 178 active users in 114 cities from 17 countries.

This year, James created largest recruiting community on slack called "Recruiting Innovators", a hub-spot for recruiting jobs, networking, news, and best practices. 

His latest project, Lancelot.io (Sign up for upcoming pilot), is scheduled for a pilot program release within early 2017. Sign up for the pilot.

James aims to make life easier for sourcing and recruiting teams and hopes to achieve this by developing an innovation lab where teams convert the best ideas into products.