I think that we can all agree that the deepest motivation of a job seeker is to just get a job with a salary that comes with it.  But I think that we’d be amiss if we didn’t take a deeper look into the other motivations that job seekers have when choosing (because the best candidates choose) a position.

Most importantly, to be effective in bringing in the right top talent, you need to know what your target candidates motivations are for choosing an company to work for.  To do this, you should set up a top candidate profile.  First, understand what skills & personality traits you are looking for in your ideal candidates (basically what are you looking for)? Second, try and identify what these ideal candidates top motivations are and rank them.  Do they want to be part of something special?  Do they value company culture?  Do they like building stuff or focusing on making existing things better?

How do you figure this out?

Ask your employees.  Your employees are a hotbed for this information as they are the best test cases for the type of candidates that have been successful at your company.  Ask them what their motivations are and what they value most.  It should be similar to the candidates you are trying to recruit.

What do you do once you figure it out?

Once you have a clear idea of what motivations rank highly for your ideal candidates, you can target your recruitment marketing messaging around them.  Make sure to highlight the ways your company excels in areas that relate to these motivations and play to your target audience.  You are selling your company to top candidates, so you should start trying to think about what they want instead of just providing the status quo.

Most importantly, track how this new messaging performs in bringing top candidates through your door with recruitment metrics that you’ve built in your system.  If the new messaging isn’t working, update it and continue to track and analyze.  Find a message and story that works and continually try and make it better.

Targeted recruiting messaging can help you reach this top talent!  You just need to find what that targeted messaging should be.

Originally posted on the SmashFly Recruitment Marketing Blog.