The Power Of A Simple Case Study To Attract The Best Talent

The Power Of A Simple Case Study To Attract The Best Talent

Are you looking to attract quality candidates? Of course, you are; yet finding them isn’t quite as easier these days. Too often you find yourself reading about, “The War For Talent” and you are starting to appreciate that things are not quite as easy as a ‘candidate centric’ market means good candidates have the ‘choice’ these days of whether they join you or someone else. 
 
The question for employers is; how do you make sure that your company is positioned so that? 

  • It’s your company prospective candidates are approaching. 

  • Your job offers are being accepted. 

  • Counter offers are a rarity. 

Yes, it’s true that using a specialist recruitment company will make life a lot easier. There are however other areas in a recruitment campaign that some companies often forget to tap into and when implemented, will help the overall recruitment process be successful. 

One strategy that many companies are finding works incredibly well is to develop a series of case studies. While you may have a closer association with case studies being used with clients, the principle of social proof is equally valid for recruiting great talent. 

 

What is The Benefit of Having a Case Study? 

The world we live in today is one where we all check each other out. Candidates will check out prospective employers to find out what they are like to work for.  They will go over to your website and social media pages and even head over to YouTube to see what videos may give them more clues to what life with ‘Your Company’ will be like.  

Why not use this social proof process to your advantage and create case studies about your organisation: who you are, what you do and what it’s like to work with you? 

I decided to write about this topic today because in recent weeks several candidates have commented to a colleague here at First 2 Recruit that they had accepted an interview having reviewed a case study related to the role that they were applying for on the company’s website.  

Let’s face who hasn’t checked out Trip Advisor before booking your last big holiday, or looked at the reviews on Air B n B. If you don’t use any of these I bet you will have checked out an Amazon review at some time before making a purchase? 

Just yesterday I was surfing a few equestrian sites for a new horse bridle and having narrowed it down to two, I went to the reviews page before clicking on the buy button, swayed by the number of 5-star reviews for one!  

When we are serious about taking action, we always look for additional information and validation that we are doing the right thing. 

Over the years, as experienced search consultants there are several classic questions that we find candidates want answers to, which are as follows: 

  • What’s it really like to work for company X? 

  • What’s the culture like and do you think it’s for me? 

  • What are the people like who work there? 

  • What is their place in the market? 

  • What career development opportunities are there for someone like myself? 

What’s good news for you is a case study can answer these and many more questions. 

Here’s a thought for you. What if case studies covering these areas could be found on a dedicated Case Studies page on your website? What difference could that make to your employer brand?

  
 
How Else Can Case Studies Be Used ? 

Video:  
Research suggests 80% of online content will be video by the end of 2018. Having video clips of employees across a variety of roles is a great medium that few companies are using which could help you stand head and shoulders above your competitors.  


Blog Posts: 
Once you publish a case study, the next logical step would be to write a blog post about it which you can then promote as part of your employer branding strategy.  

The trick is to write about the case study in a way that identifies with prospective employee’s needs. So rather than titling your post “A Case Study," you might write about a specific hurdle, issue, or challenge of a role and how the company’s development programme allowed an employee to develop new skills to overcome the challenge.  

It's important not to centre the blog post around your company, product, or service -- instead, your employee’s challenges and how they were overcome should take centre stage. 

 

Social Media 
Promote your case studies regularly using social media across a variety of platforms where your  
employee audience will be engaging.  
 
Email PDF’s  
Create a company branded PDF’s of case studies that you can email over your friendly recruitment consultant to enable them to ‘sell’ your brand in the best possible way.

 

What Do You Include In A Case Study 

Usually, a straightforward question and answer interview style are perfect. If you can create a video -even better. 

One of the easiest ways to develop a case study is to look at several questions that reveal the answers that candidates are inquisitive to know. 

  • How long had they been looking for a role? 

  • What made them decide to join company X versus somebody else? 

  • How did they find the interview process? 

  • What does a typical working week look like, what’s involved? 

  • What was the induction process ? 

  • What are the career opportunities like? 

  • How supportive are management?  

  • What’s the company culture like? 

  • Is there a social culture? 

These are easy to cover in a case study and in a way, that doesn’t come across as ‘salesey’ either. 

Case studies are an alternative way to sell your company to prospective employees. If you are not currently using this strategy, it is an easy win and will have multiple benefits for your recruiting success and employer branding.  

 

About First2Recruit

First2Recruit, are an owner managed recruitment consultancy providing a full recruitment service including; permanent and FTC positions in Accountancy Practice and Insolvency across the UK.

Alternatively, visit www.first2recruit.co.uk or call one of their friendly team on 01722 440 168.