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 as well as the active ones, you need to create ‘interest‘.
There are two key rules to making sure your advert communicates effectively.
RULE 1: Get the message across quickly
Research shows more candidates apply to adverts that get the message over quickly. You have less than 20 seconds to capture interest and motivate candidates to read more.
RULE 2: Make the message personal
Make it feel like you are only speaking to your candidate and no one else – in a language that engages them specifically.You need to understand the language your ‘perfect’ candidate speaks if you want to engage with them and create interest. Your perfect candidate should be defined by a well thought out role description. One easy example: the most common requirement is for candidates with 1 to 5 years’ BIM experience – those Gen Zers again!
Focus on what matters most to YOUR AUDIENCE to make your advert more relevant, more interesting.
WHAT TO FOCUS ON
As an example, Gen Zers tend to look for employers who can offer stability, security, and opportunities for growth. One recent survey found that 69% of Gen Zers would rather have a stable job than one they were truly passionate about. 36% were worried about getting stuck in a position that doesn’t offer chances for growth.
Whatever your target audience, focus on what might be making their current role less than ideal and issues they are likely to be facing now. Stability is high on the list for Gen Z but career progression is high on most employee’s ‘must-have’ list. Very few adverts focus on ‘what’s in it for me?‘ or ‘Why should I move?‘
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.
Let’s say you are looking for a BIM Coordinator. If you make the focus more personal and career centric, you will get more interest:
Instead of We’re looking for a BIM Coordinator….and you must have strong Revit skills and this and this and this etc.
What if the main message was:
‘Do you want to be empowered to help us on our digital journey?’
This creates much more 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. It also takes less than 20 seconds to read!
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, we created a successful campaign (see referral below) following the AIDCA process:
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 resulted in a significant increase in job applications.
I: To create interest, dbe.careers combined a brief, easy to read advert with articles and posts about ‘Digital Twins’. These articles were widely viewed by candidates interested in digital twins – Willow’s ‘perfect’ audience – excited about the future of digital construction. Both passive and active job seekers read them. References in the articles to Willow as a digital-twin-thought-leader invited readers to find out more about Willow if they wanted to including links to the job opportunities.
STEP 3 to ATTRACTING BIM TALENT 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.
TRY THE BIM JOB BOARD FOR FREE
If you are looking for good BIM talent now and would like to advertise, click here to find out more and trial the BIM Job Board for free.
We are here to help, if you have any questions, please email mike@dbe.careers or call us on 03333 580 442
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.”