This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

A hiring funnel is a sales funnel where the product is a job and the buyer is someone who already has one. Most companies run it as if demand were guaranteed.

What that looks like in practice

An advert goes up, describing the role from the company's point of view. Applications arrive from people who were already looking. The ones you actually want never see it, because nobody was marketing to them. And when the role does not fill, the conclusion is that the market is tight — not that the entire top of the funnel consisted of one job posting. I have run hiring like that, and the fix was not working harder on interviews. It was accepting that attracting people is a marketing problem with marketing methods.

What this course actually covers

Six blocks. First, the funnel itself: auditing it, finding where it leaks, writing copy that converts, and handling roles nobody responds to. Second, the marketing infrastructure — career site, referral programme, talent community, email and content, SEO, paid advertising, analytics and five social platforms. Third, active search: profile setup, network growth, Boolean and X-ray search, and searching by group, certification or willingness to relocate. Fourth, automation: scraping, parsing, outreach sequences, bookmarklets, platforms and assessment tools. Fifth, the persuasion craft — AIDA, SPIN, FAB, BANT, objection handling with LAER and Feel-Felt-Found, and closing. Sixth, ten lessons of analytics: segmentation, lifetime value, funnel and journey analysis, correlation, regression, forecasting and experiments with a control group.

A note on scope and on tools

This is marketing pointed at candidates rather than customers, and the title says so on purpose. Three of the six blocks — advertising, selling and analytics — are method-neutral and transfer directly to any audience. One caution: the automation block is a tools overview, and tools in this space change fast. Treat the specific names as examples of a category and check what is current when you get there.

Who is teaching this

I am Mike. I built the people system at Preply as it became a unicorn, including the entire attraction side, and I have worked at Wargaming, iDeals and Alfa-Bank. More than 1.6 million students have enrolled in my courses across 185 countries, and over 150,000 specialists have gone through my programmes. I hold PHRi and SHRM-CP certifications and represent HRCI in more than ten countries.

What is included

• Lifetime access to all 40 lessons

• Active instructor support in the Q&A section

• A Udemy Certificate of Completion

• Working material: the funnel audit, the journey map, search operators and X-ray queries, outreach sequences, AIDA, SPIN, FAB, BANT, regression and experiment design

• Real cases including Wargaming, Google and iDeals

Where to start

Take your hardest open role and work out how many of the people you actually want ever saw the advert. If the honest answer is close to none, the first two blocks of this course are the whole fix. Enrol now and start today.