Aligning Candidate Personas to Actual Recruitment Strategies
Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2025 3:55 am
I'm certain you know about candidate personas and the importance, but in this post, we're giving you a deeper dive into how you can use these personas to build a hiring strategy that won't stop. Even better? Your candidate experience will be through the roof.
Identifying the Candidate Personas
Building a candidate persona for recruitment is just like building a buyer persona in marketing. The same rules apply as they rely heavily on research and common sense to understand the target audience. Candidate personas, like buyer personas, need to focus on three things to be effective:
Who this person is
What they do all day
What issues keep them up at night
Casting Call: Picture your new hire as if they were in a movie. What would their germany whatsapp phone number perfect on-screen doppelganger do? What kind of attitude would they have? Most importantly where are they RIGHT NOW? Stuck in a dead end job? Desperate for leadership experience and focus? Feeling overlooked at a safe but unfulfilling job? How old are they? What level of education do they have? Who do they report to? How are their results measured?
Forensic Evidence: Once you’ve created a sketch of the persona, go through LinkedIn profiles to see what his or her colleagues do, read, how long they’ve been in a certain position, what groups they’re in, the works. This can really help you figure out what appeals to them. It can also give you solid insight into their retention numbers and what sort of recommendations ideal candidates might receive. You can get an idea of schools these folks went to, what kind of hobbies they might have and more. I always use an amalgamation of traits to get a good picture.
Write the script: This is the fun part. Try to figure out what makes them tick, use the info gleaned from people like them to gauge whether they listen to Spotify or Pandora, value work-life balance over money or are due for a move in the next six months. Does this person get along with superiors or might they want to work alone? Ask yourself anything, and then attempt to answer it. I give our personas a name. I try to imagine where they grew up, what is valuable to them and then fill in what channels are most likely to reach them wherever they are (online or IRL).
Identifying the Candidate Personas
Building a candidate persona for recruitment is just like building a buyer persona in marketing. The same rules apply as they rely heavily on research and common sense to understand the target audience. Candidate personas, like buyer personas, need to focus on three things to be effective:
Who this person is
What they do all day
What issues keep them up at night
Casting Call: Picture your new hire as if they were in a movie. What would their germany whatsapp phone number perfect on-screen doppelganger do? What kind of attitude would they have? Most importantly where are they RIGHT NOW? Stuck in a dead end job? Desperate for leadership experience and focus? Feeling overlooked at a safe but unfulfilling job? How old are they? What level of education do they have? Who do they report to? How are their results measured?
Forensic Evidence: Once you’ve created a sketch of the persona, go through LinkedIn profiles to see what his or her colleagues do, read, how long they’ve been in a certain position, what groups they’re in, the works. This can really help you figure out what appeals to them. It can also give you solid insight into their retention numbers and what sort of recommendations ideal candidates might receive. You can get an idea of schools these folks went to, what kind of hobbies they might have and more. I always use an amalgamation of traits to get a good picture.
Write the script: This is the fun part. Try to figure out what makes them tick, use the info gleaned from people like them to gauge whether they listen to Spotify or Pandora, value work-life balance over money or are due for a move in the next six months. Does this person get along with superiors or might they want to work alone? Ask yourself anything, and then attempt to answer it. I give our personas a name. I try to imagine where they grew up, what is valuable to them and then fill in what channels are most likely to reach them wherever they are (online or IRL).