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Using Survey Data to Improve Marketing & Communications for Candidates

Last month, PwC released their 2022 Global Workforce Hopes and Fears survey results. In it, they touch on several key motivators and changes in workforce behaviors. Their results show that 1-in-5 employees are likely to change employers in the next 12 months. This likely echoes what your company may be experiencing, or at least hearing about, in terms of the record employee turnover we see today.

Understanding your employees and what drives them is key to retaining them. But people are going to change jobs, and you need to know what they expect out of their next employer and role to improve your chances of recruiting them. This is where the Radancy Unified Platform and our Survey offering can help. We’ve surveyed nearly one million candidates across more than 20 industries to learn what is driving the decisions of job seekers and what our customers can do to optimize their strategies based on the findings. 

For this analysis, we looked at five common job categories and assessed three areas where employers can better align to candidates’ wants and needs: their timeline for changing jobs, their goals and motivations and their salary expectations for the role. Below are some of the trends we’re seeing today, and recommendations on how to position your company and more effectively market your roles to potential candidates.

Active vs. Passive

There are several data points that help us measure active verses passive job seekers. The attributes we are focusing on here are: their readiness to change roles, their intent for visiting the career site and if they’ve decided on an employer. Below are our results from Q1 2022:  

We see that 73% of retail candidates are ready to change jobs today, but only 25% of them have a specific job in mind. And they are more likely to be considering multiple employers. Conversely, candidates who are interested in more specialized fields like nursing and tech are more likely to have a specific job and employer in mind. They also may be spending more time researching and considering their options, and they’re less likely to apply immediately. Knowing these key differences allows you to cater your messaging and content to different audiences. Maybe develop email templates and build dedicated content pages with multiple roles for hourly candidates so they can quickly see different job options. Or when communicating with candidates for specialized roles, focus on nurturing the relationship, instead of just bombarding them with job postings. The takeaway here is that you may need to adopt multiple approaches to marketing and communications based on what you learn about your different candidates’ timelines for change.

Goals & Motivations

In addition to understanding a candidate’s timeline, you also need to know their motivations. Radancy’s Survey offering measures this by asking direct questions about a candidate’s goals and what drives them. We looked at three areas: convenience, learning/training and work/life balance for Q1 2022. 

With the increase of hybrid and remote work, it isn’t surprising that convenient locations and hours are top of mind for candidates. But surprisingly, it isn’t always the top motivator for technical candidates. Instead, convenience is the primary concern for many retail candidates. Nearly 1-in-3 retail candidates rated convenient locations and hours as their primary concern when looking for a new job. In terms of personal development, nearly a quarter of IT candidates listed the opportunity to learn as their top motivator, while it isn’t a key differentiator for sales candidates. And while candidates may be reluctant to admit that life outside of work is their main concern, we are seeing an increase in the percent of candidates whose primary goal is work/life balance. This is less important for more technical positions, but a growing requirement for customer support and sales candidates. Being able to identify these differences allows you to develop or adjust your EVP and employer brand content. Since convenience is key for retail and hourly candidates, make sure your career site has a map feature and commute calculator. If you’re hiring for tech roles, make sure to highlight your training and career advancement programs with dedicated content pages. Whatever the channel, you need to ensure that you’re speaking to the motivations and goals that resonate with different types of candidates.

Compensation & Benefits

Understanding what candidates expect in terms of benefits and pay is crucial to your attraction strategy.  So, we looked at three main questions: how important are compensation and benefits to different types of candidates, will different types of candidates require a pay raise to change positions and, if so, by how much? Below is what we found for Q1 2022.

Over the last five quarters, we’ve seen a steady increase in the percentage of candidates who said they would require a pay increase to change jobs. Last quarter, two-thirds of IT candidates stated that they would require an increase in salary when changing roles. And of the IT candidates that would require a raise, 38% would require a pay increase of 10% or more. But the starkest change has been in nursing, where the percent of candidates who would require a raise to change jobs was up 13 percentage points year over year. And last quarter, nursing candidates were the most likely to rate salary as their primary concern when looking for a new job. Having this explicit feedback from different types of candidates allows companies to better understand where they may have to adjust their compensation models, and by how much, to meet the needs of different types of candidates.

How to Get These Insights

Gaining an understanding of what drives job seekers, what they need and how they view you as an employer is the key to optimizing your employer brand, your recruitment marketing and even your workforce planning. If you’re interested in how you can measure these different personas and learning more about your potential candidates, check out Radancy’s Unified Platform and our Survey offering today!

About Tim Sodko

Tim joined Radancy in 2009 as an Analyst and has worked on and/or managed various teams in the Media and Analytics departments. This has provided him with a well-balanced view of customer challenges, and how Radancy data can help solve those challenges. In his current role, Tim acts as the driving force behind Radancy’s analytics and reporting offerings. He has redefined the way we collect data and present information to our customers. Through client consultations, market research, and an innate curiosity, he can find a solution for nearly any reporting challenge.

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