In the current job market, competition for hourly talent spans across industries. Regardless of whether a job is in healthcare, logistics, or customer service, hiring managers find themselves competing for the same talent. When it comes to communicating well to potential candidates and then retaining great hourly talent once they join the team, talent branding plays a pivotal role. 

In our member call on the topic, Lindsey Sanford and Derek Murphy-Johnson led the discussion and shared insights from their experience. 

Tactics

At KinderCare Education, Derek’s team utilizes a centralized and decentralized model, meaning 25% of their recruiting is full cycle, and the rest of the organization does their own recruiting.

To hire teachers and hourly workers for corporate functions, Derek has found success with a few approaches:

• Reengaging past applicants through nurture campaigns 

• Sourcing and finding lists from conferences and marketing openings to them

• Asking thought leaders to advocate for the organization

Social Media and Content

Social media doesn’t always produce the desired results, so Derek does a lot of Facebook lookalike campaigns to get exposure for his jobs. This allows his team to push ads and content on the platform.

“Pay attention to the perception of your industry,” Derek suggests. “For us, education is known to not pay well, and that doesn’t provide a competitive edge. To counter this, we have to constantly be communicating our EVP.”  

At one point, Derek found himself with tons of openings and a limited candidate pool. With a barebones budget and determined mindset, he got scrappy and decided to host hiring events in WebEx on the KinderCare Education career site. To generate applicants, Derek created a social event on social media and pushed the ads. He approached the event by centering event content on sharing about the leadership team and what separates KinderCare Education from other childcare providers rather than focusing on recruiting people.

He let the numbers speak for themselves. More than 100 people registered, attended, and the hiring event resulted in filling several critical roles across the market.  

Language and Location Needs

When it comes to specific locations that prove tough such as coastal communities, KinderCare competes for talent who have opportunities in retail, grocery, and logistics. In these cases, localizing efforts helps.  Localizing from the standpoint of running digital marketing and recruitment marketing job ads. 

The candidate pool narrows even further when you have a language requirement. To help find qualified people, members have generated strong candidates by writing the primary job posting in the native language, but sharing career site content and leading the interview process in English. When looking for Spanish speakers, target qualified candidates by advertising primarily on Spanish radio stations and in Spanish newspapers and employment magazines. 

Helpful Tools

Most candidates likely have a mobile phone, so taking advantage of communication methods like texting and combining this with email have had positive results. It should be a given these days, but make sure your career site is mobile optimized. 

Along with you career site being mobile optimized, you’ll want to see what technology your ATS offers. Having an ATS that offers texting capabilities is invaluable.  Some ATS platforms that allow texting include Taleo, Phenom, and Talemetry. Most offer one-way texting, 1:1 texting connections, and targeted options.

What I Wish I Knew: 

• Finding hourly talent is more complex than salaried employees. 

• Retention is easier with salaried employees, so focusing on retaining hourly talent reduces the recruiting workload. 

• Advertising in local markets is vital, as is generating native and local campaign content. For example, to localize your brand and feel part of the community, acknowledge yourself as a hometown employer, and share what local employees like about your organization. Include specific information that is relevant to the area. 

• Know what your social platforms produce,  and keep it fresh and relevant. 

• Promoting health and safety gives a great lift to ads/content.  (Derek has seen a 30% increase right now when he mentions this.)

• Creating a smooth hiring process is foundational for success. A hiring fair/event should provide offers quickly (ideally on the spot) which allows candidates to get through the process quickly so they can’t go interview elsewhere!

What  I’d Do Over Again

• Job postings don’t convert people. Set the stage for applicants with relevant, local content. Provide blogs on differentiators of your company, why your employees are motivated to work there, and share stories of why they love you as an employer. 

• Build a process/checklist to make sure rigor is applied to all aspects of the recruiting process for hourly workers. You don’t want these new hires to essentially walk through a revolving door. 

• Keep investment in social media strong. For KinderCare Education, Indeed, social media provides their second most significant source of hire. 

• Use Google trends to compare local job titles. This communicates the level of job title appropriateness. Having firm data provides insight into a job title which is important for being seen and performing well on social. 

• Indeed Insights offers great data to show why traction isn’t fast (audience availability, competitors, etc.) 

• For job posts, you don’t have to spend a lot of money. Start with SEO, and post on Craigslist and Indeed. 

What did you learn along the way that you would never do again?

Hyper-personalization of content has been a flop. Use additional resources to review content to make sure your laser focus in a location doesn’t get so narrow that it offends and repels local talent. 

In closing, there’s no one size fits all strategy.  How you recruit and attract talent can vary from corporate roles to hourly employees.  Providing yourself with the best technology and knowing which platforms to be on can make the difference between a job seeker choosing you or your competitors. 

Interested in having deeper discussions about recruiting hourly employees? Join the Talent Brand Alliance! By clicking here you can connect with thousands of other practitioners who are navigating the same situations as yourself.

Derek is a long-standing TBA member and former board member. He is currently a Senior Manager of Talent Attraction at KinderCare, managing the employer presence across all digital and social channels.

Lindsey leads the Community Committee and oversees the engagement of community members, the membership content and meeting calendar, and driving TBA member value.

Jackie Fogas works at UKG (Ultimate Kronos Group) as a Customer Communications Specialist; she assists other companies with employer brand projects on the side. Her career journey started at a lifestyle magazine, meandered through the nonprofit world, and veered into recruiting where her passion for people and stories connected her with employer branding. Outside of work, she’s currently reviving her high school interest in tennis.