Numbers Numb Us, Stories Stir Us
Storytelling, done right, can have a meaningful impact on your candidates. For this reason, it has a wealth of advantages. ✔️
1) Aiming for emotion. The biggest asset of storytelling is the ability to aim for different types of emotions. Candidates, just like everyone else, are easily stimulated through emotions, and these are easily triggered through...? That’s right, stories. From love, to humour, to sadness. It will stick with your candidate 100%. 👌
2) It increases the attention span. It can be a tough challenge for both recruiters and candidates to stay attentive during yet another similar answer to the same old question during the last interview of the day. But, when something is presented as a story, we humans tend to magically stretch our attention span.
3) Stories are universal, meaning that most of us get the same feeling when reading a story: a feeling of trust and empathy. You almost don’t need to worry about how your story comes across to different people. If done right, your story should always land well.
Storytelling in recruitment
Storytelling in recruitment can be used in different ways, from interviews to vacancies. An example, you ask? Create a persona ✏️ when you’re writing your vacancy page. Write a story about the ideal candidate and bring your vacancy to life. This is why storytelling in recruitment appeals to a lot of Content Marketers. In addition, storytelling will help you build your candidate experience and strengthen your employer brand.
4 tips: How do you utilise storytelling in your recruitment strategy?
1) What is your message? ✉️
Before you start sharing your story, take a moment to define the message you want to send with it. Every organisation has a purpose, and this is what your candidates will want to take away from your story. Ensure it makes sense before sending it.
2) Use your own employees
How do you breathe life into your organisation’s story? That’s right, with people! More specifically, your people. By involving your employees in your story, you add a human touch to your organisation.
3) Visual storytelling is the best storytelling 📸
Send your message with images: photo and video. This catches people’s attention faster and will also stick with them for longer.
4) Social media is the key
Social media is your best friend. Spread your story via social media to attract as large an audience as possible.
And they lived happily ever after
It’ll be pretty clear by now: storytelling can make a difference in recruitment.
Of course, it’ll never be easy to get storytelling right straight away, but we hope these tips have brought you one step closer to creating your story. 📚
