Research shows that 83% of people looking for a job prefer virtual recruiting events to physical events, making them perfect for talent acquisition. Virtual recruiting events — online events for communicating with job hunters through digital technologies like webinars, video calling, and chat rooms — let you promote your company, showcase your company culture, and move job seekers through your hiring workflows. You can communicate with talent who prefer to use technologies rather than meet face-to-face, perhaps younger job seekers who grew up using digital tools, and engage individuals in remote locations who can’t travel for in-person conferences or interviews. So how can you use online events to reach a broader target audience?
Target Audience
Reaching your audience of target job seekers is easy with virtual recruiting events. But first, you need to define your objectives and parameters for targeting.
Who are you targeting?
Determine your target audience by analyzing the people you want to reach with recruitment materials. Think about the demographics, behavior, and job requirements of your audience. For example, virtual events are a fantastic idea when hiring job seekers in foreign locations, helping you broaden your talent network.
What are their needs?
Job seekers might have salary, benefits, and work/life balance requirements that influence their employer searches. Research the specific needs of your target audience through market research. That might require an outlay, but you’ll diversify your audience and optimize your recruitment strategies.
How can you reach them?
Consider the different ways to interact with your audience through virtual events. That might be online conferences, virtual trade shows, and interviews via Zoom and other video calling tools.
Strategies for Utilizing Virtual Hiring Events
Here are some methods for incorporating virtual recruiting events into your hiring workflows:
Leverage existing platforms
Think about how to utilize the current digital technologies in your business to communicate with your target audience. Do you use Skype for weekly management meetings in your remote or hybrid workplace? You can also leverage this platform to engage job seekers by hosting webinars and conducting group and one-on-one interviews.
Create a strong brand presence
You can improve the presence of your business when targeting job seekers by investing in new technologies. For example, leveraging the Google suite of products, specifically YouTube, will help you reach a global audience that uses these platforms. You can then use Google’s advertising tools to track engagement with online events, such as live videos and live streams, and fine-tune your recruitment marketing techniques.
Think outside the box and incorporate lesser-known and -used technologies into your recruitment tech stack. These tools include out-of-home advertising (OOH) — advertising job seekers see when they are not at home, such as billboards on the highway and signage on public transit. Digital out-of-home advertising (DOOH) is digital advertising your target audience might come on their travels, such as digital screens in stores and at gas stations. Digital television radio (DTR or DTV radio), which refers to the audio channels on digital television services, can also be valuable for hiring talent.
Utilize social media
Social media is, perhaps, still the most effective way to recruit job seekers. Of course, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok are the most-used platforms by businesses to achieve these goals. However, consider Twitch and Reddit to target talent and move interested parties through your hiring pipelines.
Consider creative ways to communicate with prospects on these digital networks for a killer social media strategy. Research how your competitors engage job hunters and use that as inspiration for social content like status updates, images, and videos. For example, you might want to create infographics that showcase your company and its culture on Twitter. Or host live streams on Instagram that tell the world about an upcoming job position that requires top talent. Social media’s global reach can help you target passive job seekers — those not actively looking for a job but might work for your company if the right opportunity comes along on social media. These individuals aren’t desperate for a job and tend to have a great deal of experience and expertise, making them a good fit for your company.
Develop a killer pitch
Just like you would convince a potential investor to provide financial resources for your company, pitch individuals for a job by highlighting what makes you unique as a recruiter on social media — for example, you can showcase your commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion during hiring practices. Or explain how those in your talent network can track an application for a job at your company through an online portal.
Conclusion
Virtual hiring events can broaden your target audience and help you realize your recruitment goals. Start by determining your audience’s needs and how to reach them through digital technologies. Then create hiring strategies to target individuals, such as creating a strong online brand presence and utilizing social media. With a little planning, you can attract the world’s most talented job seekers to your company.
How Can Bayard Help
With over 100 years in the business, our talented team can work collaboratively with you to find out of the box solutions to reach wider audiences and diversify your candidate pools for virtual hiring events.
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