Steps for Creating a Candidate Persona
Preparation is key for the successful recruitment process
So, Who Are You Looking For?
What experience, education, and personality should you candidate have?
You better do research in order to finally find suitable candidates for the vacancy.
If you follow these steps, you will be able to convey an exact picture of your desired applicant and show the advantages of your job offer.
Since we learned what a Candidate Persona is, it’s time to take a big dive into the crossroad of marketing and recruitment and create your first Candidate Persona using this step by step guide.
Step 1: Do the Research on Your Employees
In any case, research is the key to creating successful candidate personas. Knowing your target group is the most important thing. You can do it by researching what kind of background, experiences, skills, and behavioral traits your top performers have.
For example, ask them a number of questions about company culture, their goals, or find out what they like about the company and which benefits they appreciate the most. If you do so, you will not only have a clear picture of your ideal candidate, but you will also find out more about what people value in your company. Talking with your employees will definitely increase your chances of a successful hire.
The Following Questions Can Help You With Your Research:
- What expectations and wishes do the candidates have for their employer?
- What does the competition offer the candidate?
- In which networks do suitable candidates stay?
- What negative experiences have candidates experienced in their careers?
Step 2: Determine EVP
Now that you know which benefits are the most important for your employees, you can use this information in order to attract candidates. Think about the unique advantages that your company has to offer for the applicants. How can you stand out from other companies? Some perks have become a must, so try to find something that will make you stand out from others. What is it that makes people want to work at your company? That’s EVP or Employer Value Proposition.
The benefits you determine will later be incorporated into the persona in the form of the applicant’s wishes and goals. Also, you should learn what the employees of your future colleagues wish and what expectations should be met.
Step 3: Make the Requirement Profile
Now is the time to imagine a resume of your perfect candidate, so think about qualifications, skills, and career development in focus. Which technologies should they know? How many years of experience should they have? Are you looking for a junior, mid-level, or senior employee? This is how the presentation of the classic requirement profile looks like:
Step 4: Build the Personal Preferences Profile
Wishes and goals are equally important as requirements. This is a bit of a subjective part where you have to define goals, objections, driving factors, and culture fit based on your collected data. You should always use positive messages to encourage the potential candidate to change jobs and form a good picture of your company. This step will help you realize if a candidate fits into the company’s culture and if they will value the benefits you’re offering.
Adding a picture to the candidate persona helps you imagine what qualities your potential employee should have.
Creating a Job Ad
Now that you know who your candidate persona is, it will be much easier for you to create a job ad. You know their wishes and fears, experience, and education, so use that in order to get their attention. Also, think about what’s valuable about your projects and use that in the job description.
1. Think Twice When Defining The Job Title
Be specific and original. The job title is the first thing they will see, so try to send a clear but authentic message. Saying that you’re looking for a back-end developer is not enough, so try to implement at least the specific back-end language you defined in your Candidate Persona.
Also, there is no such thing as a Ninja Developer. It’s either a Ninja or a Developer.
2. Make Creative Content.
Not too creative tho.
Nowadays, writing about requirements and benefits is simply not enough. Write a text that will make them feel like they are talking to you. Think about what is essential for your candidate persona besides the job. Use the qualities of the project that they will be working on in order to get their attention.
Hey, are you a Java Ninja? We have an innovative project that can’t be done without you. Help our team make a change in the world by building an app that will save our planet.
Newsflash! This sucks. 👆
The candidate won’t know what type of product you are building and it impacts. More importantly, make sure you have the right information at the top of your job ad. WHO are you looking for?
Java Software Engineers don’t identify as Ninjas.
3. Think Visually
Photos of laptops and code are all over the internet and nobody cares about it anymore. People will value creativity, so try to think like your candidate persona and see what would surprise you to see in a photo.
You can put something funny on the banner or ask them to find a mistake in the code. Just think outside the box because both visual and textual content is equally important.
4. Find Channels Where You Will Send The Message
Why would you boost your job ad on twitter if most of your potential employees don’t have a profile there? If you did proper research, you would know where your target persona hangs out.
Simply posting on social media isn’t enough. You have to invest money and the target audience carefully. It’s never been simpler to target people from the field, so use this opportunity. Facebook ads manager offers a number of options that can be useful for your job ad.
5. Call To Action
It might be obvious, but don’t forget to tell them to apply. Make this process simple, give them a link or email, and explain the recruitment process. It’s important to provide them with some dates in order to skip “why they didn’t replay” agony.
To Wrap it Up
Congrats! You’ve got into the head of your candidate persona! If you use this advice, you’ll get the attention of the people who will be an excellent fit for a vacancy.
Remember, preparation is the key! If you do that part well, the creative component will be easy for you. You can always change something if you realize that you’re not receiving resumes that are good enough for a vacancy.
Creating Candidate Personas requires a certain amount of effort, but it’s worth your time and energy. If you think about these steps, they are also very entertaining and they will make your further work less complicated. Use your imagination, but don’t underestimate research!
Now that you have Candidate Persona ready, post a job on our platform, and skip unqualified candidates!
