Improving the Candidate Experience: Using Content in the Offer Stage
It’s exciting to extend a position offer for both the candidate and the recruiter. And while this may be the end of the job hunt/candidate hunt, that doesn’t mean the work is over. You’ve found the perfect candidate. Now it’s time to close the deal, or risk losing them to competing offers. Extending a position is exciting in general, but using personalized content can make it that much more special.
This is especially important if you’ve already used personalized content throughout the candidate’s experience in the hiring process. This shouldn’t end when you extend the offer! Keep it consistent and find ways to share creative content with your candidate when you’re ready to seal the deal to really give them a great idea of the team they’ll be joining.
Content for the candidate in the offer stage
Extending the Offer
Receiving a job offer is the redeeming light at the end of a long and often disheartening process. There is a lot of value in creating a personal connection from an in-person offer or over the phone. Not only is it more personal, but the candidate can hear your enthusiasm about them joining the company. Even better, you as the hiring manager or recruiter can hear their enthusiasm.
After the short personal contact, there’s usually the written follow up outlining what the job includes, benefits, salary etc. But this doesn’t have to be simply the offer letter, you can make it your moment to shine, content-wise of course. Regardless of what salary and benefits you have to offer, you can package those nicely or dress them up, so to speak. Content you’ve used to showcase benefits on your career page can be repurposed to compliment the benefits package.
Integrating content into the offer
If you’re using employee or story-based content throughout your career site, your current employees are the stars of the show, giving a realistic picture of job descriptions, team culture, leadership, and benefits. So, why not utilize their stories to also give new employees a warm welcome?
While still providing the details of salary and benefits, you can also have the employees that interviewed with the candidate share why they feel like they are a good fit to the team or why they are excited to have them join the team.
This can be as simple as providing quotes from the team or taking it one step further and actually creating a welcome video with personalized messages from the team or quick interviews with the team on what their favorite benefit is. Who better to share the benefits than the people who…benefit from them on a day to day basis?
Since the candidate hasn’t yet accepted the offer, the content doesn’t need to be terribly specific and detailed. But being upfront about why this candidate would fit well into the team, makes the candidate feel valued and builds a connection with the current employees.
Let’s look at how Blinds.com created a custom welcome video for a new hire!
This video was used to welcome a new employee after they had excepted the job. But it would only take a small tweak to make that video into an exciting offer video. That one small tweak? Asking the employees that interviewed with the candidate, ‘what stood out to them about the candidate?’
‘What can she contribute to the team?’`
‘Why should she join our team?’
or simply have them say, ‘We loved meeting you and hope to have you join our team.’
Treat your candidates like customers
Throughout the offer stage there could be negotiating and counter-offers made. Telling your favorite candidate why you and your team value them could make the difference in their decision. And, it can reduce any first day stress by making new hires fully engaged with the team, faster!
When it comes to the buying experience, businesses make the best of every single step for the consumer. So why not try to make every single step of the candidate journey the best it can be, too. Using personalized content might be the cherry on top of a great candidate journey!