Jessica Gibson-Jones on Authentically Engaging Candidates

Jessica Gibson-Jones is the Global Talent Sourcing Leader at Toll Group and the Chief Content Creator at the Talent Sourcing Collective. With 17 years in the industry, Jessica pioneered talent sourcing on LinkedIn and has worked with big names like GE Australia, Thales, CISCO, Commonwealth Bank and more.

Jessica joined our co-founder Mike to talk about how to authentically engage candidates to achieve high response rates and create a good reputation for yourself and the industry.

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Jessica admits that she’s a very efficient recruiter (read: lazy) and hates having to do unnecessary work

spending the time crafting these messages up front saves loads of time later

Jessica gains efficiency by utilising templated responses and follow-ups, but by the time she gets to this point, she’s already ahead of her competition anyway.

the biggest mistake I’m seeing in engaging prospects at the moment…is the blanket spammed, not customised, non-authentic [outreach] messages…candidates appreciate that I take the time to send messages individually

Writing customised messages can be daunting, but Jessica shares her tips & tricks to writing this outreach. It starts by being curious, leverage those who are already around you, by talking to those who are already in the role, and hiring managers to really understand the candidate’s persona.

you need to be curious about the people you’re engaging with. What makes them tick, why do they like their role, what would make them leave to join your organisation

As good as Jessica’s outreach is, most candidates still won’t respond the first time. It’s important to not only follow-up, but get the rest of the organisation involved in the process.

9 times out of 10 I get a greater response rate the second approach I make…that follow-up is absolutely critical…this sort of simple stuff sourcers aren’t doing. If you aren’t following up a second time, you’re missing the opportunity

Jessica’s outreach template with 55% response rate is available via the attract.ai Chrome Extension.

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