Your Recruiting Event Is Over — Now What?

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You’re never truly done in recruiting. Sure, the high-volume recruiting event may be over, but there’s plenty of work left for you to do if you want to make the most of your attendance.

What you do right after a recruiting event is crucial. This is your chance to set communication expectations and solidify the good impressions you made on candidates. Here are the post-event rituals you need to follow to improve candidate engagement and fill open positions fast:

Automate Your Follow-Up

Job seekers who attend industry events are among the hottest leads in your talent funnel. Make sure you’re following up with all the information they need to continue the application process. If you didn’t craft a follow-up email before you left the event, do it as soon as you can. It’s best to follow up while you’re still fresh in the candidate’s mind.

Email automation is a highly effective way to follow up with candidates without having to sacrifice too much time to the task. If you go the automation route, be sure to personalize your messaging where you can. Top prospects will take note of the special attention they receive, and it will strengthen their perceptions of your business.

Email isn’t the only way to follow up with candidates. Text messaging can be just as effective, if not more so: 97 percent of adults text regularly, and 97 percent of text messages are opened. Use SMS as an opportunity to ask candidates about their personal experiences at the event and to answer any further questions they may have about your business. This keeps the conversation going and creates open lines of communication for continuous engagement.

Get on Social Media

In a recent survey, 59 percent of employees said their employer’s social media presence played a role in their decision to work for the company. To really reach the candidates you connected with at your event, you need to make sure your social media presence is just as engaging as your booth was.

Harness the social sites your candidates use, whether it be Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, or another platform. Share information about what candidates can do to progress in the application process. You can also use social media as a channel through which candidates can ask any additional questions that have come up since the event.

Social media also gives you the opportunity to boast about your culture. By driving candidates to your social channels, you can give them a better glimpse into day-to-day company life and the organization’s values.

Dive Into Your Metrics

Every recruiting event you host should be better than the last. Why? Because you should be tracking and analyzing your metrics after each event to figure out what is working and what isn’t.

Use the data you’re collecting on candidates and hires to determine important metrics like:

  1. ROI per event
  2. Turnover rate
  3. Cost per hire
  4. Applications per event
  5. Interviews per event

Taking all these details into consideration can help you measure the success of your last event and plan for the next one. To ensure your strategy is sound and you are tracking the right metrics, ask yourself these questions before planning your next recruiting event:

  1. How often do I follow up with candidates?
  2. What tools am I using at my events?
  3. Am I collecting the right data on my candidates?
  4. Am I looking in the right areas for candidates?

Nurture Candidate Relationships

You may have met some great candidates to whom you want to extend offers immediately. You also probably met some solid candidates who aren’t quite a match for your needs — yet.

Make sure you continue to reach out to these not-quite-ready candidates via email, SMS, social media, and other relevant channels. Share valuable content like testimonials from employees, information about specific programs and projects at your company, and answers to frequently asked questions. By maintaining these relationships, you keep candidates ready for the moment when the right position for them opens up. When that happens, you can make a hire without having to go through the whole recruiting process all over again.

A version of this article originally appeared on the Oleeo blog.

Jeanette Maister is managing director of the Americas for Oleeo.

By Jeanette Maister