5 Effective Ways to Stay in Touch With Past Applicants
Welcome to Recruiter Q&A, where we pose employment-related questions to the experts and share their answers!
Today’s Question: What is a good way to stay in touch with past applicants who might be good fits for future roles?
The answers below are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization of the world’s most successful young entrepreneurs. YEC members represent nearly every industry, generate billions of dollars in revenue each year, and have created tens of thousands of jobs.
1. Schedule a Time to Follow Up
If you have a candidate you’re interested in but don’t have the funding or bandwidth to hire in the moment, make the person aware of your enthusiasm for them and the current budget restrictions. Schedule a time three months later when you will contact the candidate again. A lot can change in three months, and maintaining that connection can become a benefit down the road.
With the numerous tools available to hire people today, there’s a chance you came across your candidate through LinkedIn, Glassdoor, or another social site. These resources are a great way to stay in touch with candidates. Sometimes, circumstances prevent us from hiring the candidate right away, but if we reach out and show interest, it’s a way to keep the door open even if you can’t hire someone right now.
Calendar notifications are simple and effective. I get one three times daily for personal development, which simply provides four words of incentive for every day: “Focus, energy, love, laughter.” I also set notifications to reach out to prospective candidates every 6-8 weeks, just to make sure we keep each other on our radars. Things change fast, and it’s ideal to have a consistent rapport already established.
First, we make sure to stay connected on LinkedIn, then we follow up with email or a quick call. It’s good to stay in touch with past candidates because that way we find out when they have major changes in their lives, such as new education, new experience, etc. This enables us to contact them when we have a new opportunity that is aligned with their new abilities and experience.
As long as you are honest and upfront with an applicant or candidate upon meeting them, there is no reason that relationship has to end. Keeping people informed with newsletters or reaching out to them every so often by email is an easy way to keep them on your team. Make it apparent that you value the relationship, even if it is not immediately lucrative.
