The awareness and consideration stages

The top of the funnel is the first place you can first make potential candidates aware of your company culture. Here you can get creative with recruitment marketing and share snapshots of what’s going on internally with passive candidates.

An easy and great way to do this is by consistently sharing any achievements of the team publicly, for example: welcoming new starters, announcing promotions and milestones and highlighting glowing feedback from customers. By showing that your team is recognised and celebrated, you’re demonstrating that you appreciate them and the value they bring to the business.

Don’t forget to shout about any fun team activities too! Social media is perfect for this and updates can be shared via whichever platforms you feel will be seen by your target candidates (ie Linkedin, Facebook, Instagram). Sharing these updates builds a positive perception of your brand.

The interest and application stages

If someone is engaged with your company brand and you advertise a role that aligns to the next step in their career path, the chances are the next action for them is research. This is a great opportunity for you to share more in-depth content so candidates can get a feel for whether they align with your company’s culture.

Highlighting a channel where candidates can easily sift through more in-depth content on culture can transform them from a passive candidate to an active candidate if they feel aligned with what they’re seeing. Company benefits, company values, photos and videos of team activities, employee journeys and employee testimonials are all great ways to engage candidates.

Let’s quickly also look at employee testimonials, which engage passive and active candidates alike. Content from employees –either written or, even better, video– talking about their own experience, what it’s really like to work within your company and their favourite parts of their roles offer an authentic voice and can show some of the different personalities behind the brand. It can be that call to action that will turn a passive candidate into an active one. They might enjoy their job, but if they see they could love it at another company, then you’ll capture their interest.

Maintaining momentum between funnel stages

Okay, so a candidate has applied. This is where you get to put your money where your mouth is and start to show candidates first hand that you live by your culture when you directly communicate with them.

You can do this by including any company or team content in your interview invite email templates. Or, perhaps most importantly, by ensuring your hiring managers are representing your culture authentically.

By drip-feeding any team photos, video collages, or company news in emails during the interviewing stage, you’ll encourage deeper candidate engagement. As an example, when we were hiring at Xref during COVID-19, we shared a timelapse video tour of our office, giving them a feel for the vibe and set up of our space for when we would return. Continuing engagement at the bottom of the funnel increases the chance of those great candidates wanting to join.

The selection and hire stages

When it comes to interviewing (whether in person or online) I’d recommend making sure the interviewers are reflecting the culture in how they structure the interview (i.e. if you’re a large corporate company, it might be more formal; or if you’re a start-up it might have more of a relaxed flow). You want them to be authentic in talking about their own journey and highlights, but also to not shy away from mentioning any areas that the company is working on to improve its culture, or elements of the culture which might not be suited to everyone. Whatever it may be, people value hearing a realistic summary over a utopian view…it will be pretty evident once they’re in the role if you’ve sugar-coated and exaggerated certain parts!

Finally, if there is a gap between when someone is hired and when they start the role, can you think of anything further you could drip feed here? Pre-COVID-19, at Xref people might have been invited for team social events, but once we went fully virtual we decided to share some fun employee interview videos of their soon-to-be teammates (which we filmed as part of an engagement strategy) so they could start to get to know them before their first day.

In summary… 

There are lots of creative ways to ensure you are engaging candidates effectively at the different stages of the talent acquisition funnel. The above examples are some of the approaches we have taken to build our candidate journey out over the last 12 months. It certainly hasn’t been a “normal” working environment for talent acquisition specialists like myself. We’ve had to adapt quickly to ensure we offer the same authentic, engaging and insightful experience to candidates as we would if we were welcoming them to our beautiful office filled with hard-working, fun-loving people. It’s been a challenge but, like many others, I’ve definitely seen the value of this heightened focus on finding and promoting our company culture when we’re carrying out each stage of the TA funnel remotely.

Amy Cotterill is the Global Talent Acquisition Lead for Xref, a leader in online referencing checking. With seven years of recruitment industry experience under her belt, she has led teams and hired talent across multiple roles, regions and seniority. Currently, she is responsible for the global talent acquisition function at Xref, which she has built from the ground up. She is passionate about creating the best candidate and employee experience and enabling human connection. Amy is also a keen diver, taking any opportunity she can to jump under the waves with sharks and other beautiful marine life.

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Health and wellbeing initiatives, social events, and a tenacious dedication to their people are built into Liberty Financial’s cultural fabric. Liberty Financial’s people help them achieve their vision of helping as many people as possible get financial through offering home, commercial, personal and car loans, as well as insurance. Social Community Administrator for Liberty Financial, Stephanie Ryan gave us a peak behind the curtain about the ways they invest in their people to accomplish this inspiring goal.

“We’re a business of approximately 400 employees across Australia and New Zealand,” said Ryan. “Our size enables us to have a really close-knit, inclusive culture. Our people are everything. We run these initiatives and programs, and offer staff benefits to help keep our people happy and healthy and to attract the best people to join us! We try to offer something for everyone. It’s a really great environment to work in.”

Liberty Financial’s social committee arranges monthly social events and Ryan explains these events are a valuable way to provide their people with avenues to interact outside of work and strengthen relationships.

“It’s important to have these events. We have a very social culture. Everyone is invited to come along and get to know people across the business. We organise ‘monthly mingles’ (such as comedy nights and moonlight cinema shows), two big annual parties and two annual family and friends ‘fun days’. We also celebrate many other cultural days throughout the year, such as International Women’s Day, Movember and Pride month.”

In addition to investing in social events, Liberty Financial also offers a wide range of health and wellness initiatives, which Ryan coordinates. They run monthly health initiatives (such as onsite health assessments, vaccinations, skin checks), participate in the corporate triathlon and corporate games, offer their people subsidised gym memberships, and yoga and mindfulness programs (including a reflection room for employees to relax and destress so they can perform their best!). They even offer an onsite school holiday program for employees’ children through KidsCo.

In particular, their Tour de Office health and charitable initiative was a huge success. The week-long in-house cycling event allows employees to cycle in half-hour sessions throughout the working day and raise money for their charity of choice.

“Health and wellbeing benefits are embedded in our culture, so Tour de Office is just another fun event that ties into it!”

“We signed up for a two-bike package, as we found this was a better way to engage our people so they could ride with a friend. This package included a full-time fitness coach, Sam Pendergast, who is a cyclist himself. He was amazing – engaging our people by encouraging and motivating them and making the event run smoothly.”

Liberty Financial set up their bikes with a wall-length backdrop, replicating the scenery of Tour de France. They also set up the Tour de Office streaming so that people could watch their mates compete.

“Everyone who walked past said ‘wow!’. It was exciting. Some people dressed up for their rides. It was so much fun and created a lot of buzz and healthy competition in the office. Everyone loved that you could set your own pace, get in some exercise and raise money for an amazing cause. We raised $7900 for the Beacon Foundation and were awarded Highest Corporate Fundraiser! So many people got involved and we’re looking forward to participating in the event for Beacon again this year.”

Liberty Financial believes in the value of corporate philanthropy and charitable giving. The Liberty Lend-A-Hand program offers financial and volunteer support to children’s charities; The Mirabel Foundation, The Beacon Foundation and AARDVARK.

“We support our various charities in different ways. We run regular work experience programs with Beacon Foundation, allowing young people to come into the office and rotate through different departments to get a feel for our company and what it’s like to work here.”

“The Mirabel Foundation has annual events that we volunteer for. For example, they throw a big Christmas party, and our people can volunteer to participate and meet the children. AARDVARK runs a songwriting program for young people who love music. They play their own instruments in a band, and for our end of year party, we invite them to perform. It’s a great experience to see them playing their music.”

“Personally, I love all the things we do here. I really value health, so to have all these initiatives on our doorstep, it helps me keep my health and fitness goals in check. I’m sure our initiatives are a drawcard for top talent.”

What initiatives and benefits do you offer your people? Share a comment below.

For more information about how Tour de Office can boost your employee engagement and culture, visit their website.

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