Recap CO For It 17: Data, content marketing and GDPR combined

It’s been two weeks since CO For It, a great event organized by our partner Connexys by Bullhorn. Connexys organized this event specifically for their partners and customers. As you might know, Connexys is an applicant tracking system (ATS), built on the Salesforce platform. And naturally, as a collaborative partner of Connexys, we were present as well to share our insights on combining HR, recruitment and technology.

Human attention is becoming scarce

One of the keynote speakers, Tony Bosma - Futurist, spoke about trends he sees in the recruitment world and that the attention of human beings is becoming a scarce good. On average, the concentration time-span of our audience is only six seconds! We see how this phenomenon causes trouble within HR and recruitment: it is hard to draw the attention of potential candidates towards job vacancies.

The attention of human beings is becoming a scarce good. On average, the concentration time-span of our audience is only six seconds!

Tony Bosma, Futurist

Content marketing makes a difference

This is where content marketing can make a difference within the recruiting industry. We were given the opportunity to elaborate on this topic during a break-out session. At Talent Peaks, we are convinced that implementing content marketing, combined with subsequent data analyses, can make a true difference for HR and recruitment processes and success.

We see content marketing as a journey where data lies in the basis to make the right turns and route adjustments during this journey. It requires a data-driven mindset, a way of working that we at Talent Peaks help our customers to achieve.

Engaging content starts with your persona

To illustrate how to this could work in practice, we brought our persona Kees along with us on a banner. Our persona Kees (see picture below) made the idea of how content marketing could work for organizations appealing to a lot of attendees that are facing the problem of not knowing how to attract the right candidates.

Creating a persona is an important part of the content strategy and provides practical guidelines how to create engaging content that grabs the attention of your target audience. The subsequent analytics dashboards then enables customers to measure the results of strategic actions and to track the online behavior of potential candidates and applicants. (Read further below image)

Human says ‘no’

Back to the speech of Tony Bosma. He raised an interesting topic to consider for our future: instead of us humans having to hear ‘no’ from our computers, this might become the other way around. He foresees more moral discussions in which we have to say ‘no’ to our computers. The European Union’s law on privacy and data protection (GDPR) in May 2018 is an example of this trend.

Political and moral aspects of data

This underlines the importance of being aware of the more political, and sometimes moral, aspects of collecting data about your online audience. Tracing their behavior and connecting this information with your existing database needs to be executed carefully and respectfully. Stijn Janssen, one of our experts on GDPR, created awareness on how this new EU law on privacy and data protection (GDPR) will impact the recruiting industry and what they can do today to be ready before May next year. Starting with a correct cookie statement and documenting which information you collect on candidates for which reason.

Use data while protecting privacy

Conclusion: even with the new European regulations coming in May next year, data can still boost your content marketing while being respectful of your candidates’ privacy as well. Are you interested to find out how? Contact us, we are ready to guide you.