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Best Practice: Candidate Personas

Finding professionals? Candidate Personas make it easier! Which companies benefit from the method: Best practices and learnings that are worthwhile for your recruiting.

 

Skills shortage meets too many vacancies: A challenge for companies. The days when skilled workers had to convince companies of their abilities are over. Today, the opposite is the rule. But how do you find and convince people who are a perfect fit for the company? Data-based Candidate Persona is the magic word that makes searching easier and recruiting simpler. Many companies have discovered this method to attract the best professionals and stay one step ahead of the competition.

1. candidate personas depend on the industry | Indeed (HR & Recruiting)

HR & recruiting companies in particular have recognized the importance of candidate personas and use them to address the right applicants for their customers. Even large job portals use Candidate Personas with success. On Indeed's corporate blog, the company shows a Candidate Persona for the tech and digital sector. The focus here is on education, work experience and expertise - the prerequisites for a position that urgently requires specific knowledge. Additional data on the place of residence helps to target candidates - for example, through social media ads that are played in the corresponding region. Recruiters hit the right note with statements about the behavior or working methods of the dream candidates.

Depending on the industry and the position, the candidate persona will meet different requirements. For social positions, soft skills such as communication and empathy are in the foreground; for developers, specific skills such as certain programming languages are in demand. In short: Build the candidate persona in such a way that it fits the job and its requirements.

2. address experienced candidates individually | telecom (mobile communications)

In particular, specialists with many years of professional experience are rare and highly competitive in the IT industry. That is why large tech companies such as Telekom rely on data-based recruiting processes. Instead of optimizing job ads and websites for the target group, headhunters approach suitable candidates personally ("active sourcing"). The basis: valid data, which they use for candidate personas and data-based skillsets. The data makes it possible to filter profiles on job portals in a targeted manner and to address the right specialists. The challenge: Older candidates with several years of professional experience usually have no ambition to change employers. The key here is to arouse interest during the first contact. Here, too, data-driven personas can be a basis for getting experienced professionals to come in for an initial interview.

Candidates with many years of professional experience or for rare specialist areas are best approached directly via LinkedIn, XING or similar platforms. Which candidates come into question and how you can arouse their interest: Insights that you can also gain using data-based personas.

3. feed candidate personas with data | OBI (craft & garden)

The DIY giant OBI saves a lot of time and budget in the search for suitable employees with data-based personas. The challenge: In addition to soft skills such as good conversation skills, service orientation and friendliness, specialist knowledge is a must. The company needs experienced bathroom, kitchen and garden planners who can provide customers with expert advice, think along with them and point out potential problems. In addition, there are specialists in IT, web development, recruiting, and so on. Personas provide information on where, when and how recruiters can convince suitable candidates. To determine these as accurately as possible, the company uses various data sources: In addition to KPIs from media campaigns, OBI uses data from media agencies to document job interviews and derive statements for the respective candidate persona.

For a persona to work, valid data is needed. In addition to data from the German Federal Statistical Office and market opinion research institutes, data from recruiting agencies can help. Internal data is also crucial: companies obtain this from media campaigns, surveys or from application processes and HR systems (applicant management systems, HR data/SAP,...). Good to know: With providers such as the Persona Institute, you receive data-based candidate personas including all relevant data within the shortest possible time - thanks to more than 1 million scientifically collected interviews per quarter.

4. regularly scrutinize personas | Deutsche Bahn (mobility)

400,000 applications for 20,000 advertised jobs? Candidate Personas and the regular AI-based optimization of application processes make it possible. While corporations like Deutsche Bahn use complex sourcing automation algorithms for this task, small and medium-sized companies only need Excel, PowerPoint and an applicant management tool in the first step.

People change. And so do personas. That's why it's important to collect data on the candidate persona and review it regularly. An applicant management tool as well as Excel and PowerPoint help to evaluate data in order to continuously optimize both candidate personas and recruiting processes.

5. use tools for target group segmentation | Mc Kinsey (management consultancy)

While the candidate persona at Indeed is based on facts such as professional experience and education, Mc Kinsey works with a model that focuses on values. Based on data and experience, the company distinguishes between five occupational groups or prototypes: The Traditionalist, the Do-it-Yourselfer, the Caregiver, the Idealist and the Relaxed. Based on the values that are important to the representatives of the candidate personas, companies can offer suitable benefits and individually design application processes.

In addition to facts, figures, and data, values are important for candidate personas. They determine how companies acquire new employees and keep them in the company. Prototypes, but also other tools for target group segmentation such as Sinus-Milieus and Limbic-Types help here. You can find detailed information about this in our comprehensive eBook on data-based personas.

Data-based Candidate Personas: The 5 most important learnings at a glance

  1. The characteristics, pain points in the job, popular corporate benefits of a Candidate Persona vary per industry and job requirement profile.
  2. Companies convince experienced professionals and candidates from sought-after occupational groups by addressing them directly. How, where and when is this done? Data and the candidate persona provide information about this.
  3. Feed Candidate Personas with data: Preferably from internal and external sources and make sure that the data is as representative as possible.
  4. Regularly review candidate personas and recruiting processes and optimize them as needed: Because personas change over time - just like we ourselves as people are constantly evolving.
  5. Don't forget values: Tools such as Sinus Milieus, Limbic Types or Persona Prototypes help.
  Text: Natalie Hartmann  
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