March 23, 2023

The Problem with Passive Job Seekers

You’ve been handed a new job req for a hard to fill role. Now what? Post it on a job board or course. Great, now anyone who visits that site has the potential to see this incredible opportunity, and what’s more is that this individual is now being tracked so you can advertise directly to […]

You’ve been handed a new job req for a hard to fill role. Now what?

Post it on a job board or course. Great, now anyone who visits that site has the potential to see this incredible opportunity, and what’s more is that this individual is now being tracked so you can advertise directly to them on 100’s of sites within the job board’s affiliate ad network.

Congratulations… you’ve just tapped into your active job seeker talent pool. But what about everyone else? As you’re no doubt aware, many of the best candidates for this position aren’t visiting any job boards because they already have a job. Sure they might be open to an exciting new opportunity, but they won’t apply for it if they don’t know about it.

For all of the individuals who haven’t seen your posting on a job board (and therefore are not being tracked and retargeted), how do you get their attention? That’s easy… ZPD.

Zero-Party Data (or ZPD for short) allows you to identify the best potential candidates and in the world of recruiting, there’s no better source than LinkedIn. Nowhere on the internet is there a more accurate or relevant source of Zero-Party Data. People sign up for a LinkedIn account and voluntarily tell the world where they live, where they work, the skills they possess, and the position they hold.

But you already knew that. The real question is, what do you do with this information and how does this attract passive job seekers?

The answer lies in personalization. Getting in front of this audience is one thing, but getting them to notice (and take action) is something else entirely. When defining audiences on LinkedIn, you may think that bigger is better, but this is not the case. Imagine you’re driving late at night. You’re tired and you need to find somewhere to rest. Up ahead you see two billboards. The first one reads “Rooms Available, $99”, and the next one says “Rooms with Polka Dot Walls Available, $99”. If you’re in the (presumably) very small demographic of people who love polka dot walls, then not only will that sign stand out to you, but more likely than not, this will be where you choose to lay your head for the night.

So how does this rather asinine example relate to finding passive job seekers? It’s the personalization factor. It’s the ability to find an element (like polka dot walls) that will resonate with a specific, small audience. To do this at scale however, you’ll need to find an element that is interchangeable so each audience is seeing something that resonates with them (striped walls, zebra-print walls, etc). When you add up all of the individual audiences, you’ll get to the same audience size as you would have had you created a single generic audience, but this way, you’ll be showing a specific ad to a specific audience and increasing the likelihood of them taking action.

In the world of job seekers, one example of an interchangeable element might be the school they attended. If you mention UCLA to someone who went there more than 20 years ago, don’t be surprised if you hear them shout “Go Bruins!”. The affinity towards one’s alma mater doesn’t appear to fade over time.

So with the help of LinkedIn’s Zero-Party Data, you’re able to create a micro-audience targeting people whose skills fit the role you’re promoting and who also attended a specific college. Replicate this at scale and you’ve got tailored messaging going out to the people who are most likely to notice it.

Coming full circle and touching again on job boards, the only way to reach an audience beyond the job board itself is if the individual visited that job board in the first place (third-party data). With LinkedIn on the other hand, using Zero-Party Data, you can reach your qualified candidates on 1,000’s of reputable sites whether or not they’ve ever interacted with your content.

Your top candidates can be checking sports scores or planning a vacation online and they’ll be introduced to your open position, and with the personalization factor resonating with them, they’ll be more likely to engage.
To learn how Advertaze is helping Talent Acquisition teams solve their recruiting challenges, click here to learn more.

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