What Recruiters Have Learned from Dating Apps

At FDM, innovation and development are not only values for technology, but also in all fields of the business. The recruitment team in Germany are always thinking about how they can reach out to their target audience more effectively in order to develop and extend successful recruitment methods. Job adverts, careers fairs, university cooperation and active sourcing are used effectively.

Whilst brainstorming and trying to find ways to innovate recruitment methods the team answered two questions:

1. What does our target audience use all day?
2. What new method of recruitment could be implemented quickly and wouldn’t require too many resources?

Everyone is using mobile phones and it’s relatively inexpensive to develop a software for them. By making it easier for jobseekers to find recruitment opportunity, there will be more applications made. Mobile recruitment is the way to go.

What do dating and applying for jobs have in common?

The target audience, the so-called Generation Y and Z grew up with the World Wide Web and mobile devices. Nowadays, it’s impossible not to see people that are using their smartphones – searching for information, looking for the best restaurants and cafes, buying appliances with one click or even communicating with colleagues. It was never so easy to find information ever before. Even finding a partner is now possible by only swiping profiles to the right for the perfect match. Mobile dating platforms like Tinder use this method to bring people together. If you swipe a person’s profile you like to the right and this person does the same with yours, you will be able to get in touch. It’s very intuitive and straight forward. Why not to do the same with job hunting?

With this in mind, the recruitment team searched for a new way to find suitable candidates and came across a concept that could be called the Tinder for job applications.

For over a year, we have been using an external app which connects companies with candidates and vice versa.

What does the matching app look like?

Potential applicants sign in and build up their personal profile with their picture, information about who they are, what they have accomplished, what they currently do and what they are searching for (sector and region). If ads match the person (their interests and profile), the person sees the relevant job description and can decide if she/he likes it or not. If yes, the recruitment team is able to contact the candidate via a chat function – here the person can get questions answered and the team can schedule a date for the next application step: the telephone interview.

What the recruitment team has learned from utilising the dating app concept thus far:

• It has been reaffirmed that it is worth trying out new things out and being innovative. The app as simple and a good supplement to our already successful recruiting methods.
• The app is a good way to reach people who are not sure about what they would like to do or what they are able to do after their studies.
• It is great to have a human responding from behind the machine. Applicants are able to get directly in touch with us and we are able to answer their questions immediately.
• The team got an impression that on one side it is important for the app to be fast and simple but on the other, it is equally important to build a trust with applicants: by communicating quickly to make clear appointments, the team uses the magic of the first “perfect match” and doesn’t stop working on the relationship.
• The team uses methods that fit to the company culture and target audience (particularly Generation Y and Z and a flat hierarchy culture)
• The Dating App concept is not the method of choice if the company is searching for a person with a very specific profile or if a vacancy has to be filled quickly, however it allows to increase brand awareness over the long term and bring in consultants who would not have considered FDM Group before.

Love at first sight

The faster the recruitment process gets, the more important it is to establish a relationship and use suitable methods to decide if the “love at first sight” with the job will remain over time.

Sandra Karpf gave a short presentation about this topic at Webmontag Frankfurt in November 2017 (in German). Have a look

Could you soon be finding your “perfect match”? Find out by applying to FDM.

Featured image credit: Photo by Alexander Sinn on Unsplash