Why do you need to define a candidate persona?

INSIDE THE MIND OF YOUR IDEAL CANDIDATE: HOW CANDIDATE PERSONAS CAN GIVE YOU THE EDGE

Effective employer branding is crucial for attracting and retaining top talent. One powerful tool in employer brand management is the use of candidate personas. In this article, we’ll provide a thorough and in-depth analysis of the benefits of candidate personas, the process of creating them, and some detailed recommendations on how to use them to improve your employer brand. By the end of this article, you will be equipped with a solid understanding of candidate personas and their impact on employer brand strategy.

1- WHY DO WE NEED CANDIDATE PERSONA?

Effective employer brand management requires a combination of brand communication and HR processes. What do we mean by this? Let’s go in detail.

Brand communication involves creating and disseminating messages that reflect the company’s values, culture, and people experiences. This can be achieved through a variety of channels, including social media, company websites, job postings, and recruitment advertising. The messages should be consistent, engaging, and informative, and should provide a clear picture -all thanks to creating buyer personas. On the other hand; HR processes include recruitment, onboarding, training and development, performance management, and employee engagement. These processes should be designed to support the company’s values and culture, and to provide a positive and rewarding employment experience for all employees.

2- SIMILARITIES TO BUYER PERSONA

By understanding the similarities and differences between buyer and candidate personas, companies can create more effective employer brand strategies that resonate with their target audience. They both are based on similar principles and serve similar purposes. While buyer personas are created to understand the needs and preferences of potential customers, candidate personas are created to understand the needs and preferences of job seekers and employees.

In brand communications, buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of the ideal customer for a particular product or service. They are important because they provide a clear picture of the target audience for a particular product or service. By understanding the needs and motivations of potential customers via research, companies create more effective brand messages and marketing strategies that resonate with their target audience. By analyzing customer data, conducting surveys or focus groups, and monitoring social media conversations; companies develop detailed profiles of their target audience, including their demographics, behaviors, needs, and motivations. Once buyer personas are developed, they are used to guide all aspects of brand communications, including messaging, content creation, and marketing strategy.

3- DIFFERENCE FROM BUYER PERSONA

Obviously, there is some overlap between the two, like their purpose in their respective brand communications categories. However, on one hand, candidate personas focus specifically on the needs and motivations of job seekers and employees. On the other hand, buyer personas focus on the needs and motivations of potential customers.

4- FINAL DEFINITION OF CANDIDATE PERSONA

A candidate persona (also called talent profile, employee persona, talent persona) is a semi-fictional representation of the ideal candidate for a job or role in a company. It is created by gathering data on the target audience. For instance, this includes demographic details, interests, traits, and employment preferences. Later, this information is used to create a detailed profile of the ideal candidate, including their characteristics, interests, and behaviors. The purpose of creating a candidate persona is to gain a deeper understanding of the target audience and to tailor messaging, content, and recruitment processes to their needs and preferences. To summarize, employers can provide a better candidate experience and measure the impact of their employer brand on recruitment by using candidate personas.

You can see how this process makes it easier to imagine if your potential messages are able to touch the goals & challenges of the target audience. All in all, you will have created a model candidate. After getting into the mindset of the model candidate, it will be more efficient to crosscheck if your project, platform, message, tone-of-voice and more are the correct choices.

5- BENEFITS OF CANDIDATE PERSONAS IN EMPLOYER BRAND MANAGEMENT

Candidate personas provide several benefits to employer brand management, which includes the following.

5A- Enhanced understanding of target audience

Creating a detailed profile of your ideal candidate enables you to gain a deeper understanding of their demographics, interests, and traits. This insight can help you tailor your messaging and content to their needs and preferences.

5B- Consistent alignment with brand

Creating a candidate persona that embodies your brand values and personality ensures that your messaging is consistent and aligned with your overall employer brand strategy.

5C- Improved candidate experience

By tailoring your communication and recruitment processes to the needs and preferences of your target audience, you can provide a better candidate experience and increase the likelihood of attracting and retaining top talent.

5D- Measuring the impact of employer brand

By tracking the effectiveness of your messaging and content with different candidate personas, you can measure the impact of your employer brand on recruitment outcomes and adjust your strategy accordingly.

6- CANDIDATE PERSONA & EMPLOYER BRANDING

In the context of employer branding, candidate personas play a crucial role in the AIDA model. Specifically, here’s how they fit into each stage of the model.

6A- Attention

Understand your target audience and create messaging that speaks directly to them. By defining your ideal candidate, you can craft messaging that resonates with their interests, values, and goals.

6B- Interest

Create content that is relevant and valuable to your target audience. By understanding their pain points, challenges, and aspirations, you can create content that addresses their needs and interests.

6C- Desire

Create a compelling employee value proposition (EVP) that speaks directly to your target audience. By understanding what motivates your ideal candidate, you can create an EVP that highlights the benefits and values that matter most to them.

6D- Action

Create a recruitment strategy that you tailor to target audience. By understanding where your ideal candidate spends their time online and offline, you can create a recruitment plan that reaches them where they are and motivates them to take action.

7- PROCESS OF CREATING CANDIDATE PERSONA

7A- Data collection

Gather data on your target audience, such as demographic details, interests, traits, and employment preferences. For instance; you can collect data through surveys, focus groups, interviews, or online research.

7B- Data analysis

Analyze the data to identify patterns, trends, and commonalities among your target audience. Then, use this information to create a detailed profile of your ideal candidate.

7C- Persona creation

Give your candidate persona a name and a stock photo or illustration to make it more tangible and relatable. Later, you can use the profile you created to flesh out their characteristics, interests, and behaviours.

7D- Refinement of the persona

Test your persona with your recruitment team, hiring managers, or current employees to see if it accurately reflects your target audience. Refine the persona based on feedback and new insights.

8- RECOMMENDATIONS FOR USING CANDIDATE PERSONAS EFFECTIVELY

8A- Align personas with your employer brand strategy

Ensure that your personas embody your brand values and personality and are aligned with your overall employer brand strategy.

8B- Tailor messaging and content to different personas

Use the insights from your personas to craft messaging and content that resonates with different segments of your target audience.

8C- Use personas to inform recruitment processes

Use your personas to inform your recruitment processes, such as creating job descriptions, designing external communication materials, and deciding on communication platforms.

8D- Validate personas with research and feedback

Validate your personas through research and feedback from your target audience, recruitment team, and current employees. Consequently, refine your personas as needed based on new insights.

8E- Measure the impact of personas

Use recruitment analytics and feedback from candidates and employees to measure the impact of your personas on recruitment outcomes. Later, you can benefit from this information to adjust employer branding strategy as needed.

9- CONCLUSION

Candidate personas are a powerful tool in employer brand management. By creating a detailed profile of your ideal candidate and using it to tailor your messaging, content, and recruitment processes; you can provide a better candidate experience and measure the impact of your employer brand on recruitment outcomes. Use the recommendations and best practices outlined in this article to create and use candidate personas effectively. For more information, consult academic and scholarly resources on the subject of candidate personas in employer branding.

To learn more, you can join a free week session of Employer Brand Academy certificate courses here or you can download our free ebook creating an authentic employer brand here.