Data-Driven Candidate Persona for Optimized Recruiting and Employer Branding
How adesso understands software developers from a data-driven perspective—and tailors job postings, career websites, and recruiting campaigns accordingly.
Growth requires targeted recruiting
adesso is one of the leading IT service providers in the German-speaking world. The company employs more than 10,400 people and continues to grow. This growth also requires the company to continually attract new, qualified software developers and strengthen its employer brand.
Until now, efforts to reach potential candidates have relied primarily on target audience studies—such as those conducted by Stack Overflow or WeAreDevelopers—as well as individual assessments, empirical data, and industry trends. The key question was how the company could reach suitable professionals in an even more targeted and effective manner.
Gain a Deeper Understanding of the Target Audience
To optimize the recruiting strategy, it was essential to gain a detailed understanding of the needs, preferences, and behavior of software developers: In addition to general interests, media usage, and application behavior, the goal was to gain insights into their personalities and expectations regarding the work environment.
The goal was to use primary and secondary market research to create a valid database that integrates both the developers’ self-perception and how they are perceived by HR and line departments, and benchmarks this against the market situation.
Development of a Data-Driven Candidate Persona
In collaboration with the Persona Institute, adesso launched a market research project with the goal of creating a candidate persona for software developers.
Standardized Survey
- In collaboration with the Persona Institute, adesso developed a detailed questionnaire on personal interests as well as general values, attitudes, and challenges in the workplace.
- Just under 40 in-house software developers participated in this survey.
In-depth interviews
- In addition to the quantitative survey, adesso gained detailed insights through in-depth interviews with selected developers.
- In Focus: Employees' Values, Motivations, and Challenges.
Development & Validation of the Persona
- Based on representative data collected from a survey of 554 software developers, the Persona Institute created a data-driven candidate persona.
- This was cross-referenced with and supplemented by the findings from the adesso survey and the in-depth interviews—resulting in a 360-degree persona of the target group.
Targeted Outreach Based on a Well-Defined Candidate Persona
By combining quantitative and qualitative methods, we developed a well-founded, data-driven candidate persona—one that allows both recruiting and employer branding to gain a deep understanding of the target audience.
Key Characteristics Highlighted
The persona reflects the characteristics, motivators, and information-seeking and job-application behaviors of the target group. Comparing how the target group sees itself with how others perceive it yielded valuable insights.
Optimized Recruitment Messaging
These insights can be used to optimize job postings, career websites, and recruiting campaigns in a targeted manner.
What Really Matters to Developers
For example, it became clear that developers place great importance on details when applying for jobs—such as salary, benefits related to “quality of life,” and, to a lesser extent, clear career prospects—while traditional employer messaging is often perceived as too vague.
"Thanksto our collaboration with the Persona Institute, adesso has a precise candidate persona based on real data that provides a realistic and up-to-date picture of the target audience."
How candidate-centric are your recruiting and employer branding efforts, really?
Data-driven candidate personas reveal who your target audiences really are—and where your messaging misses the mark. The Persona Institute’s Persona Audit shows you where the greatest impact lies.
Go to the Persona Audit →- Assessing Your Current Approach to Targeting Audiences
- The Potential of Data-Driven Personas
- Specific Next Steps for Your Company
Understand your target audiences with data-driven personas.
Would you like to take a data-driven approach to aligning your recruiting and employer branding with the actual needs of your target audiences—just like adesso does? Talk to the Persona Institute.
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