What do candidates really want to read about?

I strongly believe in human marketing. Human marketing brings a better way for marketing within organizations to operate, a way to be as human as the people who work in them.

How does human marketing work? When we use imagery and language that taps into our audience's needs and emotions. Solve their problems, and react to their unhappiness. Then, the audience cannot entirely resist the persuasive power of the message.

Using the human-centered approach in your copywriting is the most effective way to convince the audience to do the desired actions.

If you want to be persuasive in your message, to get people to react to you and reply to you with a positive attitude toward your offer, you must write from the bottom up since that is how the human decision-making process is structured.

Let's look at Maslow's pyramid structure to understand the human decision process, with the question in mind: what drives people to act? What is essential human motivation?

The first level of human motivation is at the bottom, and it all starts there! We, all people in the world, have contractual needs. And those are the first motivators that trigger our decision process.

1. When you draft a message to attract your audience, your first task is to target your audience's HUNCH. Answering these needs in your message will make you competitive. These aspects are about rewards and are foundational.

• Candidates want to know if you will be paying them fairly and competitively. If you will reward their contributions. If you provide them with programs to manage their health and wealth.
• At this level, candidates want to understand their job role, the company values & culture. They want to know about their career progression and the flexibility available.
• When reading your proposition, they ask themselves: should I leave now? Will I be safe at work and get paid on time? How much am I worth? Is my work close to home? Will I lose my job? Who are you as a company? What is your industry/product you offer? Who are your primary competitors? Major customers? What's in it for me?
• At this level, your audience fears their future, their fear of losing control of their life, uncertainty, and existential survival.

Your responsibility when drafting a message is to make sure that you write to make them trust you and comfort this fear by answering the HUNCH-level question: "Can I trust you."

2. After we approach the experiential level of human motivation- here is your writing targeting your audience's HEART. Again, coming to this level in your copy will differentiate you. Here you determine experimental rewards as an effective way to show your audience that at your company, your employees have a complete work experience they may not be able to find at another employer.

• Candidates want to know if you will support them with their career journey. Provide them with the flexibility to "do work" for them. Help them manage their physical, financial, and emotional well-being.
• They want to know if they can have a strong "family/colleague" network at work and feel like part of a team.
• They want to understand their contribution to the business and what the company culture is like.
• When reading your proposition, they will ask themselves: is this the right fit? Is this an exciting challenge? What type of people works at your company? What projects are they working on? What does your company do within the community? What are you doing specifically within my field/discipline? What projects would I work on? How will I grow? What is your company culture really like, and what are employees saying about you? What jobs are open that fit my background and experience? Will I like the team?
• At this level, your audience fears stagnation/ being stuck; they fear rejection, separation, and social exclusion.

Make sure that your message will comfort these fears. And that would answer their main questions: "do I care?"

For our message to be written with persuasion, you need to answer these three questions:

1. 1st question: can I trust you? That will satisfy your audience HUNCH
2. 2nd question after: do I care? Will help your audience HEART
3. And there is a 3rd question that needs to be answered, "does it sound right?"

3. And here, you will write to your audience HEAD, making you unique. Employers who connect their business strategy to a broader societal purpose empower their employees to do meaningful work. In this way, employees see their work not just as a job but also as part of a larger purpose, thus building an emotional attachment to the organization." (Does this sound right?)

• Candidates want to know and connect to your company's mission and vision. If you provide them with meaningful and fulfilling work. If you help them feel like they belong at your company.
• They want to know if they will love where they work and if they can tell everyone about it. Will they feel a sense of purpose and ownership there? Will they actively participate in development activities? Will their values be aligned with your company? Will they be recognized and rewarded for their contributions?
• When reading your proposition, they will ask themselves: What's the hiring process, and how quickly will I hear back? How well does this role match my experience and career interests/goals? How quickly can I contribute and build skills? Does this culture really match my values? How do the benefits/salary compare to other positions/ companies? Is this worth changing? Am I making the right decisions? What will life look like in my new role? Do I believe in the company? How much training will I have? What activities can I get involved in?
• Here your audience will fear engulfment, being smothered.

And again, make sure that your message comforts these fears.

Final Thoughts

Your ultimate goal is to deliver a human experience!!! People follow people. To understand how to do that, you must understand the profound human decision-making process.

Fundamental to all human decision-making is the idea of trade. Understanding this concept will make it much easier to create persuasive content. Your content will be hit and miss without understanding this concept, and you won't truly understand why.

Don't forget when we use imagery and language that taps into our audience's needs and emotions. That solves their problems, reacts to their unhappiness, and the audience cannot entirely resist the persuasive power of the message.

And this is the human marketing we discussed at the beginning of this blog.

So now, look at your email outreaches, job descriptions, job ads, and a career website, for example: Does your copy reflect hunch, heart, and head? Do you give your audience information they want to read about there? Are you comforting their fears? Are you showing them with your message that they can trust you and why they should care about you?

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Interested in improving your writing skills and applying them to your recruitment messaging? I have created a copywriting learning guide that will help. You will learn about persuasive writing techniques, magic phrases, and words to use in your writing. Check for yourself here.?