Organising a chat through the Meet & Engage engagement platform is simple and intuitive, but knowing what to talk about in chats is a whole other battle. It’s something that new clients ask us about often.
It’s clear that using chat and creating a dialogue is an authentic way of bringing their employer brand to life, but what’s less simple is what to talk about to achieve your engagement aims.
Our answer is that if it’s relevant and engaging to your audience, you can run a chat on virtually any topic you want. You’re only limited by your imagination!
There will be some chat topics that you’ll schedule on a regular basis and these will be the backbone of your engagement schedule. But that’s not to say that there aren’t some really great topics that you should be considering to maximise engagement.
1. Diversity and Inclusion
Diversity & Inclusion is always a hot topic and we know it’s something graduates feel strongly about when considering any future employer.
One of our clients ran a session recently on the topic of diversity and how they as a business embraced it.
It offered a chance for potential applicants to ask them questions about their diversity policies, but also the chance for them to promote the work that they do around diversity as a business.
Questions on the day covered topics such as LGBT and women’s networks, disability policies, international employees, and ethnical diversity. It’s not difficult to see that the audience really engaged with the topic.
Run chats prior to an assessment centre and invite in-process candidates to talk through the day’s activities…
2. ‘Women In Tech’
We’ve also seen sessions such as ‘Women in Tech’ that was aimed at giving female applicants the chance to find out more about working in an industry that received very little female applicants.
Current female graduates were invited to join the session as moderators and discuss their experiences of being a woman within the industry – from application through to working life.
Whilst diversity-themed chats will certainly help to engage audiences at the initial attraction stage, introducing more advice-style chats at key stages of the recruitment lifecycle is also a great way to engage.
3. In Process Hints and Tips
Many clients run chats to help their candidates prepare for telephone or video interviews with useful tips and hints on what to expect so they can perform their best.
Similarly, clients will often run chats prior to an assessment centre and invite in-process candidates to join and talk through the day’s activities and practical details such as how to get to there and what to wear.
Of course, once an offer has been made, the chats you can run during the keep warm period are endless, from chatting to current graduates and being introduced to mentors, to finding out about accommodation near the office and what the first week will look like.
Together with the ability to share content during a chat (be it video, imagery or documents), it creates a really engaging and bespoke candidate experience relevant to your target audience.
Consider these ideas as inspiration – there are endless topics that you could run chats about to benefit candidates and create a truly engaging and memorable experience.
We’re always here to help talk through ideas and help you come up with some great and engaging chat topics – and the more ‘out of the box’ the better.
