Recruitment marketers, we’re often measured on how well we deliver the reality of the employee experience to prospective hires. Sharing employee stories is a best practice here, because it grounds important but abstract concepts like employer value proposition, mission and values. And, according to a study called Inside the Mind of a Candidate conducted by LinkedIn, 42% of people considering something new are searching for insight into these universal aspects of corporate culture to decide if they fit.

But, there’s a huge opportunity to provide even more nuanced insight into the employee experience, with this goal of communicating culture to candidates as accurately as possible. The same percentage of potential applicants (42%) also said they were wondering if they would fit in with their prospective new team.

Take a team approach to employee storytelling content, where you partner closely with the business unit, team or location to find what’s unique about a specific small group experience within a larger organization. When it’s natural to the story, you should still tie team content to the overall EVP, purpose, mission or values, like this:

Using a team value proposition and creating team story content is the next thing in recruitment marketing for two reasons.

First, it provides more specific insight into what makes or breaks someone’s daily life at work: who they work with on the regular. Fitting within a team is the difference between automatically ordering a colleague her complicated coffee order with your own and pushing the close button in the office elevator when you see her coming. Days turn into years.

Second, team story content improves the candidate experience.  Why wait until 2/3rds into the process to introduce candidates to their team and manager, when it’s one of the most important parts of their decision? It also introduces a candidate to their prospective team risk-free, before a traditional interview setting.  By giving candidates what they want sooner in the process, you’re making this whole “What do I do next with my life?” much easier for them.

Recruitment marketers, by using a team value proposition and team content approach, the insight into everyday life at your company for candidates gets more specific (and better). And, you could vastly improve your candidate experience. What’s next, increasing employee engagement from putting the right people in the right places? Increased retention because you’ve right-set expectations from apply? The world? You’re great. Go take your team out for extra hot, iced, sugar-free, vanilla soy lattes.

Lauryn will be speaking at EBrandCon this May 8th at 1:45 on What We Learned Creating Content for High Performing Career Sites.

Lauryn Sargent is a founder at Stories Incorporated, a company that is half story consultancy and half creative studio. She has been a co-creator of a company currently working with best-in-class and emerging employer brands like Dell and EliteSEM. She has also had a direct hand in creative direction and creation of content that truly reflects the employee experience. Before founding Stories in 2011, Lauryn spent years in technical, executive, and everything (corporate) recruiting. She has a Masters in Human Resource Development from George Washington University and a Bachelors in Telecommunications (Audio/Video production management) from Ohio University.  

We’re the story people, we can help. Email me at [email protected].