The Ultimate Nurturing Guide

You might have noticed that we’re big advocates for nurturing. We’ve condensed all of our advice for nurturing into one ultimate guide.

Why Is Nurturing Important?

Better Candidate Experience
If you’ve read our article, you may already have heard us talk about how Outbound recruitment shouldn’t be overlooked when it comes to candidate experience. Taking the time to nurture candidates allows you to build a casual relationship where you can get to know one another on a human level and give genuine interest to candidates, making them feel valued.
Build Employer Branding
The more candidates that you’re building a relationship with, the more people that are learning about your organisation (and… really learning about it, not just reading generic marketing campaign outreach). Remember: candidates who have a good experience will relay this to others, which will reflect positively on your brand.
Pick of The Bunch Candidates
When your hiring is reactive, you limit the candidates you have available — think about it: you’re limiting your pool to the candidates who happen to be available over the period in which you have a role open. In reality, your dream candidate might not be interested now, but through nurturing you can snatch them up the next time, or plant the seed in their mind so they are ready to go when you are! This in especially important when hiring for niche skillsets and with a diversity mindset.
Reducing Time to Hire
Having a pool of candidates you’ve nurtured really means you have a pool of candidates who are ready to go when you are. When your role goes live, you only have to let your candidates know. You won’t have to spend time building the relationship or convincing them about your company brand, saving you both time & money!

The Nurturing Mindset

If your nurturing revolves around EDM based sequences, you likely aren’t getting the most out of your talent pipeline. Without genuine human connection, your talent pipeline is filled with disengaged candidates. You don’t know anything about them, and they don’t really know anything about your company beyond a superficial level, this makes it hard to have a pool of candidates ready to go when you start to hire, and defeats the purpose of having a talent pipeline to begin with.

Nurturing is a mindset. You are building relationships with these people. By switching your perception from candidates to genuine connection, you’ll be able to create a nurturing process that is authentic, and successful. These relationships should be about more than just a hire, they are going to be your future colleagues and will be building your company alongside you.

If you’re struggling to switch into this mindset (which, when you have little in common can be difficult) start by making it a habit first. Commit to a quick, 5 minute nurture event every day to build up the habit. Whether that is organising a call, commenting on their post or sharing articles of interest with them.

Remember: nurturing isn’t a short term strategy. It’s a long-term seed that you plant and nurture until you can harvest.

What does this actually looks like?

Step 1: Build Your Pipeline

Whether you’re actively hiring or wanting to have a warm pipeline for when you’re next growing the team, building out a pipeline of candidates that you want to nurture is your first step. You can build this list through those that have applied to you previously, referrals or candidates found through sourcing.

Reach out to candidates by letting them know you liked their profile and think they’d be a great match for the company when you start hiring again in 6 months time. Invite them to coffee or a virtual chat to learn more about the company!

Step 2: The Date

When you meet up, take a casual approach and remember the nurturing mindset. Be genuine, and they’ll give you their genuine self, making it easy to see if they’ll be the right fit for your company.

When your nurturing, you’re not pitching the company as you usually would in a screen, and this can make it tricky to know what to talk about. Our golden rule is this: make a new friend. You don’t need to talk extensively about work, or the company, you just need to build a relationship.

Do a soft close on candidates when your nurturing. You don’t want to immediately offer them the role. Instead, just explain what is going on in the organisation and what you’re looking for. Then ask them if that is something they’d be interested in for the future

Step 3: Profit

Continue your casual catch-ups based on the timing you feel is right for them. Follow their lead — here. If a candidates is keen to chat, get among it. If they’re distant, wait a little longer before interacting again. When you’re hiring, or they’re looking, let them know you have a role open and that you’d love to introduce them to the rest of the team.

Having spent the time nurturing them, you’ve gotten a no-fuss hire, with a candidate that you know will fit well in their role, and within the company. Better yet, there were no fees attached, just a few quick catch-ups and plenty of patience.

Online and Offline touchpoints for impact.

Where it is feasible, one of the most powerful ways of making a lasting impact is to promote both digital and IRL touchpoints. It is unlikely that you are the only business on your candidates radar, to ensure that you are kept at the forefront of people’s minds make sure you go the extra step.

If you are meeting in person, buy the coffee. That way, there will be no awkwardness about who’s paying and it allows you to get past those first awkward moments with ease. They are also giving you their time, so show appreciation by buying the coffee.

But what do we actually talk about?

It can be hard to think of talking points. Here are some suggestions:

Do some research: Before coming to the meeting, research your candidate. Look for any commonalities that you have, or anything interesting about them from their online profiles and keep those in mind as conversation starters.
If you are a hiring manager, it is likely that your experiences are similar to theirs. You can often find commonalities in the earlier stages of your own career. Act as a trusted advisor and provide mentorship on any challenges they face.
share knowledge! Ask if they are working on any projects that you may be able to provide assistance with.
interesting projects, if you have anything that you find exciting – share it! It is likely your passion will bleed into the conversation.
Share some war stories! Speak candidly around challenges, there is no need to sugar coat your experience! Often authenticity is key.

Common Scenarios

Here’s what we recommend doing in these common scenarios we get asked about.

After your first outreach they respond with “it’s not the right time” or “I’m not interested.”

Bummer! Every response can be turned into an opportunity to nurture, and improve your candidate & employer brand. Don’t ghost your candidate! Thank them for getting back to you and tell them that you’d love to stay in touch as you really do think they’d be a good fit and you’ll be hiring again in 6 – 12 months. Then add them to your nurturing pipeline.

They took another job elsewhere

Tell them congratulations and that you wish them well. Leave them for 6 – 9 months then get back in touch to ask how they are going with the new role, and start nurturing them again. It’s all about long-term gains in nurturing.

They didn’t get the role

Reach back out them personally, let them know that they didn’t get the role, but you would really like to stay in touch because you think they’d be a good fit for future. Then lock in a catchup in a few months time to show them you are serious.

They are looking for a new role and hit you up!

there are 2 scenarios here:

you are either hiring and can look t o