Let’s face it, the staffing industry has a negative reputation. Over the years so many organizations have used ineffective tactics to find talent. Whether they’ve bought candidate contact information, scraped emails from websites or cold called off lists of phone numbers, most people have stories about annoying recruiters offering positions that less than desirable for a number of reasons. Because of this, many view recruiters in a bad light. So how do we overcome that negativity? Of course, you have to use sound strategies for sourcing candidates so that your companies brand doesn’t become tainted. But there are a lot of other ways you can brand your company and it’s employees to seem less threatening to candidates.
Application Branding
One effective method is to change the language you use when asking candidates to “apply” when arriving on a landing page. By offering a career consultation or a guide to learning more about staffing and other contract work you can eliminate some of the anxiety around applying. If you go this route, you’ll want to make sure that your recruiters are providing a more consultative & nurturing approach to hiring candidates that apply in this way. You don’t want people to think they’re downloading a guide or being provided a free career consultation only to receive a hard sell on a job they don’t want.
Branding Recruiter Job Titles
That brings me to the next method for lowering the pressure on candidates. The term recruiter has its own negative connotations. That’s why many staffing firms have shifted from naming their sales staff “recruiters” and branding their recruitment employees with a more holistic job title. Below are some recommendations for recruiter job titles with less pressure attached to them:
- Career Consultant
- Career Advisor
- Assignment Coordinator
- Placement Coordinator
- Career Development Strategist
- Personnel Agent
- Personnel Officer
- Human Resources Officer
- Employment Consultant
- Labor Force Advisor
- Personnel Agent
- Personnel Management Specialist
- Placement Consultant
- Candidate Attraction Specialist
- Talent Officer
- Talent Coordinator
- Workforce Specialist
- Talent Selection Agent
- Sourcing Consultant
- Talent Consultant
- Sourcing Specialist
- Sourcing Advisor
- Talent Acquisition Consultant
If you’re not prepared or willing to make that extreme of a shift these job titles offer a little less edge while staying true to traditional job titles for staffing professionals:
- Staff Placement Officer
- Staffing Consultant
- Staffing Advisor
- Recruitment Professional
We’re all familiar with those modifiers for elite recruiters that may or may not help them in their efforts. These include such terms as “Senior”, “Executive”, “National”, “International”, and “Global”. While these terms can make the individual seem more accomplished, they often do nothing to persuade candidates to work with them. They achieve those titles by being good at their job. They’re not good at their job because of the titles. That being said, combining these grandiose modifiers with less aggressive job titles can provide a sense of accomplishment to the recruiter while keeping the vibe less “Boiler Room”.
Implementing New Branding
You might be wondering where these job titles can be most effectively utilized. Other than the obvious places that this will be noticed, like Linkedin and Indeed where recruiters are actively contacting candidates, you probably have recruiter profiles on your website (psst if you don’t, you should). Here you can brand your recruiters as experts and consultants who are going to advise candidates on their best opportunities. This approach can help brands with negative reputations return from the dark side of staffing and become a shining beacon in the darkness, an example for others to aspire to.
When making changes like these it’s best to A/B test so you can view the efficacy of your efforts. You find that the old way of doing things works better in your vertical. Or you may find that by simply changing the way that you brand the application process and your recruiters’ job titles you can improve the image of your brand and place more candidates, thus increasing ROI on your marketing efforts. If you’re interested in learning more about A/B testing and brand building consultation services give us a shout.