This July, Stories Inc. and Talemetry teamed up to host a webinar on, you’ve guessed it, stories! More specifically, Lauryn Sargent and Stephen Schwander deep dived into the topic of improving the candidate experience with employee stories.

Lauryn shared how we [at Stories Inc.] think in ‘cause-and-effect.’ It’s easier to build a story and follow it when you think about each step in the experience and what happened because of those steps.

Current Recruiting Trends

Stephen began the webinar discussing the current trends in recruiting. All of these trends set the ’cause’, for us to start working towards the ‘effect’. Two of the trends he touched on was the clear move of top talent from the finance industry to technology, and that people are more interested in working with purpose to see the impact they’re making.

Knowing the ’cause’ of these trends allow us to better inform the ‘effect’ and the stories we’re telling We now know that people what to be working with purpose and seeing an impact of what they are doing. And thus, we focus our stories on purpose, values, and missions.

We also know that there has been a shift of candidates looking for smaller companies, rather than large conglomerates. How can large companies showcase that they still have a small company feel? They can do that with stories.

Show off your values

Data shows that almost 50% of candidates look for values while doing their company research. Just because you list the values on your career site, doesn’t mean you are providing any insight into what your culture really is. Using stories can provide an example of how you live by your values every day at work.

Flexibility means different things to different people. Giving an example of what it means to your company, is the best way to connect with a candidate. There are many different levels of each value, and candidates desire different levels of say, transparency, flexibility, ownership, etc.

Candidate Specific Content

Creating specific content is one of the easiest ways to improve the candidate experience because it tells candidates exactly what the company culture is.

Stories should be slightly polarizing, Lauryn said. This makes the right people so excited, can’t wait to join and apply. The wrong people [think] the content was interesting enough that they know who should apply, but that they continue on to the next place that may be the better fit for them.

When working with diversity, different stories will be valuable to different audiences needs and concerns. From veterans to women in STEM, stories help audiences and potential candidates better picture themselves in the position of the storyteller.

Here at Stories Inc., we like to get stories that show what the company is doing specifically for them. This is one of Lauryn’s favorite diversity story.

When it comes to improving the candidate experience, the best thing you can do is give the candidate what they want, which is insight into the company.

“The most important things are that it’s true, it’s real, and you are using real employee stories.” – Lauren Sargent