Men Wanted For Hazardous Journey (Ernest Shackleton); Your Country Needs You (Lord Kitchener); Close Your Windows, Open Your Doors (Apple).
In the 20th century, great job ads didn’t need many words, just the right ones.
While brevity still matters, the internet changed almost everything else.
Today, it’s possible to extend the reach of one’s persuasive words, beyond the job ad, into a conversation: without having to be there.
This article will show how recruitment chatbots are being used on Facebook to collect information conversationally then pre-qualify and segment automatically.
Step 1: Ad Copy & Image
Job ads you talk to are opt-in. That means somebody must click your ad before they can be messaged.
So how to find them?
Well, 52.5% of Americans visit Facebook every day. It’s the 2nd largest ad network after Google. Talkative job ads can sit in the ‘newsfeed’ alongside auntie’s birthday pictures, or beside your ‘Friday Night Lads’ group chat in Messenger.
The Ad Image or Video
Every Facebook ad requires an image or video.
The average smartphone user scrolls between 71 & 74 feet a day.
As the brain processes images & videos 60,000 times faster than text, the visuals’ job is to halt the scrolling.
When it comes to choosing your image, ignore me.
Listen to Leo Burnett, father to Tony the Tiger & Marlboro man:
Make it simple. Make it memorable. Make it inviting to look at.
For example, this image has rather garishly superimposed a stock ‘salesman’ image onto the Mona Lisa in The Louvre.
It wasn’t pleasant, it wasn’t gracious, it wasn’t smooth. But I stopped, and I looked.
Ad Copy
Burnett also wants your ad to be ‘fun to read’.
That’s how you earn your purchase.
The ad should be relevant and engaging. Shouting ‘we’re hiring’ lowers the potential engagement you will receive through likes, comments, shares and clicks. These aren’t vanity metrics. Every piece of engagement boosts your ad’s relevancy score vs competitor’s offerings.
Instead, offer value in the copy.
The below example targets arts & social science graduates from British Universities. These people will general not become the historians or psychologists they have studied as. They are exploring options and are slightly insecure about their degree’s ROI (£27,000 across 3 years).
So, offer them the chance to learn how they could earn it back.
That’s it.
Step 2: The Recruitment Chatbot Conversation
Assuming the click has been won, it’s time to start talking.
Since 2017, Facebook have made it possible to create automated chatbots on the site.
A recruitment chatbot can hold a conversation like you but doesn’t mind repeating it 100 times.
In this instance, the bot can blend advertising the role with pre-screening candidates.
When done successfully, the result is qualified leads being delivered to recruiters’ ATS’s or call lists.
There are 3 essential ingredients to achieve this:
Appealing to the readers’ self-interests
Adam Smith wrote that the free market functions when everybody works for their self-interest.
This principle should drive all job ads.
With a chatbot, it’s important not to forget persuasion whilst pre-screening.
For example, the example depicts the salary as an investment in the candidate’s future, rather than asking ‘the pay is £25,000 – want to proceed?’.
Ensuring the candidate meets basic requirements.
By the same token, pre-screening can incorporate gamification within the conversation.
The example below first took the job requirements. Then, it built them into an earnings ladder.
Notice how the recruitment chatbot has been asking for compliance? ‘I will’, ‘Yes’, ‘Yes’. It’s a proven sales technique that beginning with small requests helps build towards larger ones.
The conversational flow is familiar to every user: 8 billion messages are sent on Facebook every month.
Making the final step simple
Facebook’s integration with other mobile apps makes the last step seamless. In clicking the button, the potential candidate need not even type a number. It’s a two-click jump from recruitment chatbot to recruitment consultant.
The button can also go anywhere: fire data to ATS, log in CRM, alert recruiter via text.
The speed is important. Last week Chris Russell wrote about fixing mobile applications. All the candidate’s information can be passed in a URL to a sign-up form. It’s 2 clicks from conversation to account creation on the company’s portal.
The possibilities are great and various.
Final Thoughts
Men Wanted For Hazardous Journey (Ernest Shackleton); Your Country Needs You (Lord Kitchener); Close Your Windows, Open Your Doors (Apple).
These are great, snappy statements.
But now we can bring more voice to job ads, and let them do the talking for us.
Recruitment chatbots on Facebook help Recruiters/HR professionals focus on high-end tasks.
That means more phone calls to learn about someone’s personality & character, rather than their college name or salary expectation. It means more time to train staff, but less requirement for new ones.
Not bad for a bot eh?
Watch a video of the job ad which talks here.
Adam Chambers runs a digital agency which delivers qualified leads to recruiters from Facebook’ . His site is : https://www.goteachie.com/
