On average, we typically had a serious applicant omce every two months who performed well in our assessment and whom we were interested in scheduling an interview with. However, since the beginning of 2023, we suddenly started receiving five such applicants per month. It was really exciting, but it made us wonder what we had done differently to experience this growth.
Quality applicants in abundance: Our secret during labor market scarcity
Written by Linda
1. The location of job postings
Because we are always looking for new talent to expand our team, we have several places where our job vacancies are posted. We use 10kb.homerun.co/, we have a partnership with jouwICTvacature.nl, we occasionally post new vacancies on Indeed, and we have an advertisement running on LinkedIn. However, we noticed that the increase in applicants didn't come from these paid channels, but rather we were being directly contacted by new candidates. So, these channels didn't explain the growth.
2. The time of year
When students finish their studies and the summer vacation begins, we typically see an increase in job applications for "grown-up" positions. This leads to a higher number of applicants during the summer period. However, this year, the increase started much earlier than expected. Moreover, the candidates were predominantly experienced professionals rather than just recent graduates. This also did not provide any indication of where the increase was coming from.
3. Office dog got a LinkedIn profile
Funny but true: the only thing we really did differently compared to previous years was creating an account for our office dog on LinkedIn: Pippa de kantoorhond. Since April 2021, Golden Retriever 'Pippa' has been walking around our office (we wrote this blog about our experiences). As a 'lighthearted behind-the-scenes glimpse', we decided to create a LinkedIn account for her, where we share a photo taken by one of our developers during work hours every couple of weeks. We add a short story to the post and share it. While our regular posts from the 10KB company page on LinkedIn typically receive around 200 impressions, Pippa's posts consistently perform significantly better with an average of 1500 impressions. Moreover, these impressions mainly come from people in our field of work (software developers).
Why do cute dog photos lead to more applicants?
We understand very well that a photo of a dog performs better on social media than an article about a framework we like to work with. However, impressions alone don't say much about the interaction with your company. We do have a suspicion: at the end of the day, many web development companies are similar. You can find a decent salary almost everywhere, employers try their best with secondary benefits, and the type of work you'll be doing doesn't differ significantly between companies. Having an office dog is something that sets us apart from other companies. It says something about the atmosphere, but especially about the culture that prevails here. That behind-the-scenes glimpse allows potential colleagues to make a better assessment of whether they would fit in here (or not), regardless of the work they'll be doing.
Is having an office dog the only way to attract more applicants?
One could conclude that every company facing a shortage of employees should adopt an office dog with a corresponding LinkedIn profile, but that would be oversimplifying things and isn't feasible for everyone. However, what we do with that profile - providing a behind-the-scenes look and showcasing our work culture - is something other companies can certainly do. What makes your company unique? Why would someone want to work for you? How do you let potential colleagues know about the culture they would be entering if they joined your team? By answering these questions (and effectively communicating them to your target audience), future employees can gain a clear understanding of your organization.