How To Get Great Applicants with Inbound Recruiting: Case Finitec

Finitec is the leading Finnish IT recruitment agency, specializing in connecting top professionals with the best places to work. In short, Finitec can be described as the artist manager for the IT-rockstars. The company has a good organic growth history and since the objective is to grow another 25 % during the year 2018, there was a need for recruiting.

Three hard-to-reach experts in three months

The goal of this inbound recruitment campaign was to find 20 potential candidates for a specific position at the company, select the three best suited and finally, hire them. The schedule was exceptionally challenging since two of the company’s employees were going on maternity leave.

Adding to the challenge was the fact that the type of experts Finitec was looking for are hard to find. They need to have very specific competence, the right kind of attitude and there are barely none available on the market.

The project started in the beginning of September 2017 and was kicked off with – in accordance with the inbound methodology – creating buyer personas, or in this case, candidate personas. This was followed by putting together a recruitment strategy as well as a content plan. Finitec wanted to have the contracts of employment signed by the end of January 2018, so the application time had to end in November.

After this Finitec continued with their recruitment process: going through the applications and inviting the most suited candidates for a relaxed evening at their office space, giving the applicants a chance to get to know the company a little bit better – and of course vice versa.

The structure of the inbound recruitment campaign

Inbound recruiting differs from conventional recruiting. With traditional job postings a company attracts only those candidates who are actively looking for a new job. When the competition is tough and there is a huge demand for the best experts in the industry, chances are a company won’t get noticed at all, if it doesn’t stand out positively from its competition.

In other words, employer branding is crucial. When implementing inbound recruiting, contact information of applicants is collected in the same way as contact information of leads. The key is to make the recruitment process an intriguing and useful experience for the targeted experts, thus simultaneously creating a positive corporate image.

“We’ve done recruitment campaigns before, but with a more traditional style. This time it was nice to notice, that the way that Finitec came across to the target group – even though they weren’t familiar with the company before the campaign – was all very positive”
– Pekka Hackspik, Managing Director, Finitec

Finitec’s recruitment campaign built on both traditional elements, like job postings in recruiting channels, as well as inbound content strategy. The content was created keeping the campaign’s target group in mind. The applicants were attracted to Finitec’s site with three blog posts. The readers interested in the topic were then directed to conduct an interactive test or move straight to Finitec’s Join Us site to familiarize with career opportunities.

A chatbot was used on the Join Us site, profiling visitors and guiding them forwards: some were asked to complete a test, others were immediately offered a time to chat with a contact person at Finitec. The interactive test was built to attract the target group. The goal of the test was to be entertaining and informative for the potential candidates, as well as to gather information and contact details about the people who completed the test in order to get the recruitment process started.

All of the campaign content was shared diligently in social media. Since all of the social media channels of the whole Finitec team were used, the reach of the campaign was significantly improved. In addition to this, the campaign was boosted by Facebook and LinkedIn marketing to a carefully targeted audience.

Results in ten days

“Both parties were committed to getting the work we had a agreed upon done. And the results were outstanding.”
– Lauri Jutila, CTO, Finitec

The recruitment campaign was active in November for ten days time. We monitored the campaign statistics with the help of the HubSpot marketing automation, and after a little over a weeks time we got the following results:

• The amount of visitors on Finitec’s website increased with 138 % during the campaign
• The campaign site with the interactive test had 1 316 visitors
• 390 potential candidates left their contact information either completing the test or filling out a form on the career page,
• The conversion rate of the site was over 7 % during the campaign, meaning that around every thirteenth person visiting Finitec’s site left their contact information

Together with the job applications Finitec received directly, as well as the potential candidates gathered through the inbound campaign, Finitec managed to reach their goal in ten days: 20 potential candidates.

Employer branding and a positive buzz

Just as with inbound marketing, one of the objectives of inbound recruiting is to reinforce the company’s status as a thought leader and thus build the company brand.

No later than the first day of the campaign there was a positive buzz going on. In LinkedIn discussions people compared the results they got from the test and Finitec received praise for the VitoBot and the company’s rock&roll attitude that pervaded all forms of communication. Finitec’s easy going manner was successfully conveyed: people were interested in the campaign and the brand was visibly built when people noticed the company.

“The target group praised us for a superbly executed campaign. We got ahead of the pack in one fell swoop.” – Pekka Hackspik, Managing Director, Finitec