Is the “top talent” you’re looking for unemployed?

One of the biggest problems with the vast majority of recruiting narratives (job adverts, outreach messages, etc.) is that they are positioned to appeal mostly to actively job-seeking audiences.

I recently finished reading ‘Direct Leads’ by Michael Masterson and John Forde, which introduced me to Eugene Schwartz’s concept of the 5 stages of customer awareness.

Here they are, but with my input on how this translates to a candidate’s awareness journey:

• Unaware – Candidates are unaware that they have a problem to solve. E.g. they’re mostly happy in their job.

• Problem Aware – They have had a few bad days at work over the past month and know there’s a problem with their job/manager/company. But they don’t think another job is right for them right now.

• Solution Aware – They know there are jobs out there which would offer them a better move, but they aren’t aware of a recruiter that can help them.

• Product Aware – They are actively researching different agencies and companies and are likely sending off the occasional job application.

• Most Aware – They’re actively looking and have decided they’re ready to leave their current company but will need something to put them over the goal.

Looking at the above, you can see that most job adverts and outreach messages focus on candidates at the Product Aware and Most Aware levels.

Of course, this means you’re missing out on a huge talent pool in the Unaware levels.

So how can we position our recruiting narratives to appeal to them?

Masterson and Forde explain that you want to be direct for the Aware customers. Whereas you want to be more indirect with your pitch for the Unaware customers:

“Direct leads deliver an idea to a customer that they’re ready to accept. Indirect leads, on the other hand, give the customer extra emotional momentum and reaffirm proof to help them finish forming the conclusions they’ve only just started to make. Conclusions that will, hopefully, energise their imagination enough that they’ll soon be ready to buy.”

(A lead in this context refers to the first 100-600 words, which Masterson and Forde argue is the most important part of your copy).

For indirect leads, you want to nudge the Unaware and Problem Aware candidates towards contemplating a change.

Here’s an example (credit to Simon Monaghan – I took this from one of his excellent adverts):

“In your corner of life as a software developer, do you feel free?

Do your bosses stifle your ideas, leaving you feeling like a factory worker sitting on a conveyer belt?

Are you labelled as a backed, frontend, cloud, or DevOps person when you’re so much more than that?”

Note how the indirect lead doesn’t immediately launch into the job opening but provokes intrigue. It gets the reader to reflect on their current situation and read on.

So next time you’re writing a recruiting narrative, consider your audience’s level of awareness first. Then position your narratives accordingly (direct or indirect).

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This is a guest blog from Matthew Mercer-Elgenia.

Matthew teaches recruiters how to source hard to find candidates more effectively and is an expert in Boolean logic. I know this because I’ve worked with him.

You’ll find his website here.