The other day, I was asked a question regarding the recruitment process.
“We have successfully attracted customers, and sales have been steadily increasing, so we started recruiting new employees, but we haven’t received any inquiries.”
Upon hearing this, I realized their customer attraction strategies were well thought out. They had a clear concept, strong selling points, and effective differentiation from competitors. However, their recruitment content lacked appeal.
To attract people, the job must be appealing and benefit potential candidates. It’s only natural that people won’t respond to a call to “work for us” or “work hard for our company” if there’s no clear advantage for them.
Today, I want to talk about the approach to recruitment. If you’re struggling with recruitment, please read until the end.
Consider Recruitment Like Customer Attraction
Just like with customer attraction, people won’t come unless there is a reason for them to choose your company. The process is the same, except the target changes from customers to job seekers.
Think about:
- What negative emotions are arising in the market?
- What is the market demanding?
Consider what job seekers are worried about and what issues they are facing. Then, think about what kind of environment would solve these problems.
What are the concepts and values that job seekers can easily relate to? What are the attractive selling points, unique features, and strengths?
Naturally, job seekers will compare your company with others in the area, so you need to be better than the competition to be chosen.
Common ineffective appeals include:
- “We are a friendly company.”
- “We have good communication within the company.”
- “We are transparent.”
These lack distinctive features and do not resonate as they do not solve any problems or address any challenges.
Think from the perspective of job seekers. In the beauty industry, for example:
- Low salaries and difficult living conditions → Want to increase salary
- Few holidays → Want more holidays
- Physical strain → Want to work without overexertion
- Limited days off → Want to work at their own pace
- No insurance → Want to work at a company with good welfare
- Limited working hours → Want to work while raising children
- Inconsistent customer flow leading to unstable salary → Want to work at a stable company
- Hard to manage multiple jobs → Want to work at a relaxed pace with one-on-one customer interactions
Without building your approach based on such hypotheses, you won’t attract people.
Case Study: Kesae Total Balance
At Kesae Total Balance, from my experience in the beauty industry, I knew there was a gap between the market’s needs and the reality, creating a so-called distortion.
This distortion generates negative emotions. Negative emotions often directly lead to actions, making them advantageous when making appeals.
Although the employment environment has improved now, the beauty massage industry was once plagued with issues such as:
- Few holidays being the normal
- Low salaries being the normal
- Long working hours being the normal
- Long hours of practice being the normal due to the technical nature of the job
These prevailing values were full of dissatisfaction. I thought that solving these problems and offering a new value system and working style that met these needs would attract people.
From this hypothesis, we developed Kesae Total Balance concept and selling points:
Concept: Balancing work and personal life Selling points: Two or Three-day off a week, flexible work schedules, No need to do marketing themselves as head quarters are looking after it, contracting job, monthly revenue of $1,500 to 4,500 dollars depending on how many customers they looked after.
These were unique in the beauty industry and resonated with job seekers with such concerns.
We promoted that both work and personal life are important. Take proper holidays, rest on your preferred days, use the time when there are no customers for yourself, and receive 1.5 times the industry average salary so you won’t struggle financially.
For job seekers, this was something they had wanted but couldn’t find anywhere. By shifting from the conventional norms and appealing from the perspective of the job seekers, we resonated with those struggling with financials and holiday issues.
During interviews, people often asked, “Is this really such a good deal? I thought it was too good to be true.”
This shows that if you can offer an environment that solves the problems and challenges job seekers face, people will come.
Create and Provide What is Demanded
There’s no need to overcomplicate things.
In both customer attraction and recruitment, you form hypotheses about what the target is looking for, create a product that meets those needs, and provide it. This is the essence.
It’s not about superficial techniques. No matter how much you reach out through marketing, a poor product is still poor.
To be very honest, if there’s no reason to be chosen, you won’t be chosen.
In your industry, what are job seekers worried about and what challenges do they face? What kind of environment would make them happy?
Think simply, and you will naturally find the answer. Then, consider what mechanisms you need to create to achieve that.
