Dive Brief:

• Recruiting today needs to move from the "transactional" to the "creative," and that means employers must "rethink how they can stand out to draw talent" via a storytelling approach, according to Tech.Co.
• Author Lars Schmidt adds that this new focus on storytelling can cut across all business sectors (not just tech, for example), and some (he mentions hospitality, scientific research and beauty) are using storytelling to help candidates get a more "intimate view" of what makes their potential new employer tick — and how they will fit in.
• Job applicants today want a deeper look, he writes, getting more into the specifics right from the start. He cites the example of a software engineer learning early on what it's like to write code at a specific employer as part of the recruiting process. 

Dive Insight:

Schmidt explains that for employers, it's no longer enough to just "be on" social media, adding that recruiting professionals today should be "engaging in conversation" with candidates. 

“Today is all about immersion, and central to that is storytelling. People ‘buy’ from people," Matthew Jeffery, vice president, Head Global Sourcing & Employer Brand at SAP, told Tech.co. "They want the whole story. Real, authentic, and critically emotional.”

Part of that storytelling strategy would be a strong push for more transparency in recruiting. For example, employers need to treat job candidates like they would customers, taking steps to make the experience of applying for work more candidate-centric. Another part of the storytelling concept would be to encourage employees to share their positive experiences on company review sites such as Glassdoor.