Recruitment is a marathon, not a sprint. It can take 4-5 touchpoints before candidates are ready to make a decision about their careers, which is way more than people think. Relationships should be built, nurtured and maintained via messaging sequences that combine hyper-personalization with a multichannel approach. Not only does this provide several opportunities for engagement, you’ll boost your chances of sparking real conversations by providing a tailored experience that is unique to your target individual. 

What is a nurture sequence?

Candidate nurturing is a strategy that borrows the principles of lead nurturing from marketing. When used effectively it can help teams attract, engage and hire top talent through the distribution of targeted hyper-personalized messaging across different channels. Messages in your outreach sequence can be triggered by certain times or be interval based and can be used to warm-up prospective candidates by keeping in contact with them until they’re ready to take action.

Top 5 benefits of nurturing candidates

Well-crafted nurturing campaigns that combine hyper-personalization across email, LinkedIn, phone calls, SMS and more can make a real difference to your bottom line. It is proactive, rather than reactive, recruitment that can help your team make more placements, faster. Other benefits include: 

1. Builds your talent pipeline

Building lasting relationships with candidates via hyper-personalized multichannel sequencing allows you to create a ready pool of candidates. This means when suitable roles come up, you don’t have to start prospecting from scratch. You’re also more likely to get candidates coming to you when they’re ready for a new role, as you’ve already established a relationship with them based on trust. 

2. Improves the candidate experience 

The candidate experience is very similar to the buyer’s journey in marketing. When you are thinking about purchasing a new product or service, you often aren’t ready to invest straight away. Instead, you want to think about it, research and get wooed by personalized advertising. Candidates go through similar phases. They want to feel valued, know that they are in safe hands and go through a process that is personal and meaningful to them. 

The last thing they want is to be is on the receiving end of a mass cold email with zero follow-ups. This is where nurturing sequences are so powerful, as they can take candidates through that journey towards becoming a warm prospect where they’re ready to commit to a conversation, interview or a new job.

3. Reduces time to hire 

Hyper-personalizing your messages and providing a series of touchpoints for 100% of your candidates can feel like a lot of work. But with automation it doesn’t have to be. You can actually set up your nurturing sequences so that they run alongside your day-to-day activities and add candidates to them as you go. This means you can nurture relationships at scale, never miss a follow-up and provide a shortlist of suitable candidates a lot quicker than if you were doing your outreach manually.  

4. Bolsters your brand 

According to LinkedIn, 80% of candidates who experience an unsatisfactory recruitment process openly tell people, and a third of these will do so proactively. Better candidate experiences mean improved brand reputation. Candidates are more likely to come to you when they have a need, but also you’re more likely to get referrals and create brand ambassadors.

5. Optimizes your recruitment

Adopting a nurture-first strategy is a no-brainer. By keeping an active line of communication with candidates using hyper-personalized sequences you will achieve higher response rates, build a better pipeline of talent and improve your brand reputation.