Attracting BIM talent: Step 2: Interest

2: INTEREST

HOW TO MAKE SURE CANDIDATES READ ABOUT YOUR OPPORTUNITY

Attracting attention is one thing. Holding it is quite another. For your advertising to succeed, you need to give your candidates a reason to stay engaged.

If you are (and you should be) focussing on attracting passive job seekers, you need to create a message that will interest them. The key is to make the message personal so that you are only speaking to your candidate and no one else – in a language that engages them specifically.

COMMUNICATING EFFECTIVELY

A well-defined role will define the type of person you need and how much experience they have. It also enables you to create an image of the perfect candidate, an avatar. Now you can find out the language and specifics that appeal specifically to your avatar and focus on what matters most to make your advert relevant and interesting.

WHAT TO FOCUS ON

Focus on what might be making your avatar feel their current role is less than ideal and focus on potentially pressing issues they are likely to be facing now.

For example, career progression is usually high on the most employee’s ‘must-have’ list. In the world of BIM, a lot of candidates also want to be with an employer that genuinely embraces digital, listens to, empowers and rewards those who want to make a difference.

If you were looking for a BIM Manager, making the ‘what to focus on’ more personal, instead of ‘We’re looking for a BIM Coordinator….’, you will get more interest if you had a headline along the lines of:

‘Do you want to be empowered to help us with our digital transformation?’

That would create interest with anyone who is doing ‘ok’ in their current role but isn’t empowered and could be tempted by a role where they are encouraged to help the business improve.

If you would like more advice on how to create content and headlines that resonate with BIM candidates, please email mike@dbe.careers or call me on 03333 580 442

THE WILLOW CAMPAIGN

Willow were struggling to get good response to their adverts for senior level BIM candidates in Australia and Canada. Together with dbe.careers, Willow created a successful campaign (see referral below) following the AIDCA method:

A: To increase attention, Willow used dbe.careers to reach a more targeted community and the wider BIM audience. They also sponsored the BIM salary guide which had a significant increase in job applications.

I: To create interest, dbe.careers ran features on ‘Digital Twins’. Obviously, these were viewed widely by candidates interested in digital twins – Willow’s ‘avatars’ – excited about the future of digital construction. Both passive and active job seekers read these articles. References to Willow as a digital-twin-thought-leader invited readers to find out more about Willow if they wanted to.

More on how the campaign used Desire, Conviction and Action follows in the next steps.

Step 3 focuses on ‘Desire‘  Convert interest into desire by showing how your company can solve the problem your ideal candidate is facing in their current employment. It will be published next Tuesday, December 15th.

If you are advertising now and would like steps 3, 4 and 5 in advance, please email mike@dbe.careers or call me on 03333 580 442 

Click here if you want to read more about the BIM job board and trial it free for 3 months.

REFERRALS:

“Having utilised the DBE Careers job board recently for job advertising on behalf of Willow, we received an increased level of candidate activity and applications, and feel the site helped to profile our expansion into regions such as Australia and Canada. 

The DBE team were very helpful and professional in advising us on our candidate attraction strategy and in suggesting targeted campaigns for specific countries.”

“I have to say some of the applications that have come through have been excellent. We have 5 interviews to arrange for next week with some really strong looking CV’s”

“Mike’s experience and knowledge helped us approach some challenging briefs more confidently by developing a clear strategy to find the best people.

The dbe website was definitely invaluable to our search and gave us the opportunity to meet some very smart professionals.

I would recommend DBE.CAREERS to any employer looking for the best BIM talent looking for their next career challenge.”