can automation inject more personalization into your employer brand strategy?

April 25, 2017 Steven Brand

We all know the robots are coming. We live in the age of the processor, share our homes with the Internet of Things. Artificial intelligence (AI) is with us today and will be even smarter tomorrow. But far from undermining efforts to personalize the experience of working with your organization, perhaps the robots can help. Let’s take a look at how.

Extending the power of referral. Employee referral (ER) has long been established as one of the most potent sources for economical, culturally aligned, efficient hiring. Technology is taking this idea one step further. A referral platform enables sharing potential openings and other content with our social networks at scale. The real win is when technology helps match the skills and abilities of our network with the requirements of our business.

Encouraging employees. As a skeptical public relies less on corporate messaging and more on peer reviews, we should help existing staff “sell” on our behalf. Technologies such as Smarp, PostBeyond or Elevate from LinkedIn do this by curating content together in one place and enabling it to be shared quickly. Add in fantastic analytics and an element of gamification and you have engaging platforms built to remove every practical obstacle that stands between your brand stories and your audience.

Bringing artificial intelligence to life. Automation considers repetitive process elements that might be carried out more efficiently by a computer. This has a transformative effect on how we can recruit and how candidates feel about the process. Growing investment in AI is continuing this evolution. In learning how to speak to candidates and support hiring managers, technology is now able to start building relationships, a crucial facet of successful acquisition and conversion.

"In learning how to speak to candidates and support hiring managers, technology is now able to start building relationships, a crucial facet of successful acquisition and conversion."

Personalized but not in-person. Today’s candidates are more inquisitive than ever. The success of Glassdoor and the continued development and deployment of employer brand strategies are effects of interacting with an audience that has a thirst for information and an expectation that they will find it. Businesses are seeking ever greater diversity of talent and need means of engagement that combine a sense of personalisation and convenience with genuine scale. Chat platforms such as Brazen or PathMotion enable organizations to offer this combination of the personal and the practical.

Building long-term relationships. If we do our jobs well, we will always deliver more superb candidates than there are live vacancies. Our brand attracts them, or our sourcing capabilities draw them in. What happens, then, with every unsuccessful candidate? Or those not quite ready to move? This is where relationship-building must occur, contact which continually engage candidates with the organisation and people within it. Modern Candidate Relationship Management (CRM) platforms allow organizations to manage these relationships in a proactive way — which is vital in maintaining healthy pipelines.

Listen and learn. The world has never been noisier than it is today. Ignoring the noise is no longer an option because these many conversations have the power to affect every element of your business — from the value of your stock to your ability to attract future workers in the right numbers. Fortunately, media monitoring technologies are available to help you pull this wall of noise into individual conversation strands, reports and themes. This gives you the chance to listen to the collective as well as the individual voices that have a story to share about you and your business.

The point is that it’s personal

All of these developments and technologies are about adding elements of personality, individuality or humanity into a candidate journey and experience that sometimes feels like it has become too automated and slickly efficient. Candidates now expect it from all their purchasing experiences. Personalization enables us to go places that would otherwise prove impossible. It shows our successes and highlights our failures in detail so we can do something about them.

Businesses that are best at attracting and engaging candidates and then helping them perform and advance can leverage these employees as brand ambassadors. Because they represent so many varied success stories, their experiences can help create tailored messages for every interested candidate. The technology now exists to make that a reality, whatever the size of your company.

When it comes to technology, we often envision it leading to a cold and impersonal experience. The reality is that given today’s HR technology landscape, if you want to deliver an experience that feels very human, you need to embrace some robots.

To download a full white paper on how technology can help your organization better attract and win great talent, click here.

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