By Susan Saldibar

As if you needed one, here’s a thought to keep you up at night:

What if your recruiting efforts are wrong?

But what if, with a couple tweaks, you could get four qualified leads for an open executive director slot, instead of none?

What made me think about this is something the dynamic Jen Lovely told me about her sister.

Her sister had been a head nurse for the Washington Seahawks and Washington Huskies (cool job, right?). She, like so many nurses, was pulled away during COVID to help in the emergency rooms across the state. It wasn’t long before she was completely burned out, as were her fellow health care workers.

She later told Jen that working in a senior living environment would have been a welcome change for her. There was better security, and less likelihood of being bombarded with emergencies. She would gladly have made a change.

But no one came knocking.

Would you have? Could you have? Is your HR department directing their recruiting efforts to people like Jen’s sister? Or are you still sifting through the resumes of clock-watching folks looking for an easy job that pays a couple bucks more an hour than their current one?

Wait. Before you answer that question, 

I recommend that you chat with Jen, executive VP of sales for Conversion Logix (a Foresight partner).

Because Conversion Logix is out to forever change the hunting trail for new employees. After talking with Jen, I realize that the best way to illustrate it is by using an example from an actual Conversion Logix user.

A large West Coast assisted living community was looking for a new executive director.

Their traditional pull-only advertising efforts were pulling up nothing but extremely unqualified candidates.

Not that they weren’t trying ….

  • They offered a $30,000 signing bonus. (Wow.)
  • They ran digital ads across all social media channels.
  • They posted the job opening on Indeed, Monster, and LinkedIn.

So they were putting a lot of effort in and spending big bucks. But they were only doing a small percentage of what they should have been doing.

Conversion Logix stepped in and changed up their old-school model:

  • Targeted viable candidates: That meant targeting executive directors and people in other similar leadership roles in compatible industries, such as hospitality and others where personalized service was key. They targeted both active and inactive job searchers. This is key, as many employees are ready to make a move with the right opportunity.
  • Retooled their advertising strategy: Launched creative, targeted ads across multiple social media channels to pump up frequency and reach. Targeted users with relevant job titles and interests. This included executive directors in competing communities.
  • Included a mobile targeting strategy: Launched banner ads using precision mobile targeting (geofencing) and hyperlocal targeting to promote the opportunity to potential candidates local to the community.
  • Updated the lead generation strategy: This is where the rubber meets the road — where technology and creativity come together to capture the candidate lead once you get them to click on a link to a landing page. They used these website apps from Conversion Logix’s lead generation software, The Conversion Cloud:
    • Spotlight: This cool video feature allowed them to record daily life inside the community to give the prospective candidates a virtual sense of what it would be like to work there.
    • Schedule Genie: Enabled job seekers to set up an interview on the spot.

Did they find a qualified executive director? Nope. They found four! 

The community ended up using three of them! All for the cost of one campaign. Pretty cool.

There are amazing people out there ready to make a move. Why aren’t you grabbing them?

With a few tweaks you can find those heretofore unfindable people who have the heart and soul for the very special work you do. But you have to use your “brain juice,” as Jen says.

Jen is bursting with creative recruiting strategies. I won’t list them all out here. But I’m sure she’d love to share them with you. And, the biggest reason to check out their strategies is the simplest reason: They work!

You can learn more about Conversion Logix’s disruptive recruiting strategies and tools by checking out their recruiting resource.