Not many things are universal to almost every company today, regardless of industry, location, and size. The one thing that is universal is the importance of hiring. The ability to attract and retain top talent is crucial to the success of a company, especially given the current labor market situation. This is why every organization needs to take a good look at their recruitment marketing.
.png?width=300&name=Funnel%20(1).png)
Recruitment marketing is the strategy you use to market your company to potential candidates. To better understand what goes into recruitment marketing, we need to look at the four steps of this popular marketing model — Attract, Engage, Convert, and Nurture (but put it in terms of converting visitors to employees, not customers).
You will need this model to evaluate your recruitment marketing by:
- Creating awareness for your company to attract job seekers
- Engaging with candidates through your content
- Driving those candidates to take action and apply
- Nurturing their interest throughout the hiring process
We hear it from businesses every day — hiring can be one of the most costly and time-consuming necessities. When done correctly, your recruitment marketing will give a snapshot into your company culture and will attract the top candidates to your open positions. On the other hand, when done half-heartedly, it can prove to be a deterrent for potential applicants and further increase the amount of time and money it takes to hire.
Your recruitment marketing should help you find high-quality candidates, reduce the amount of money and time it takes to bring in a new employee, and have a better overall employee experience that will continue well after you make your hire. Continue reading to learn how you can maximize your recruitment marketing strategy.
The Link Between Marketing and HR
There are a lot of instrumental pieces to making a business successful. Those pieces may change depending on who you ask, but the one element that is undeniable to business growth is people. While each job title has varying importance to your organization, each member contributes directly to the culture and identity of your business.
Prospective job applicants will look in many areas before you even talk to them. This may be your website, social media, customer reviews, community relationship, or several other areas. Ultimately, this makes your image crucial to attracting top candidates. So when it’s time to hire, we can no longer look to HR or recruiting to get it done alone. Hiring creates a direct link between your marketing and HR departments. Both need to be aligned to be successful.
Why Branding is so Important
Did you know that 70% of applicants will look at a company’s online reviews before deciding to apply? It’s almost like they are online shopping for their next job. This is why your company’s branding and online reputation is so important to hiring your next employee.
Your branding is a key part of telling your business’ authentic story. If you’re just starting to work on your branding while actively hiring, then now is the time to take a few steps back and look at the story your company is telling.
Branding has a natural connection with hiring. With branding, companies can create demand and awareness for customers. However, the way you brand your company to customers will differ from the way you brand yourself as an employer.
When branding for recruitment marketing, it’s all about the perception of your company from a candidate's point of view. You want candidates to see themselves working for a company that matches their aspirations, work ethic, values, and personality. You want to tell them a story of your organization and what your unique value proposition as a company could bring to the employer.
How to Tell Your Story
76% of candidates are explicitly looking for what makes a company an attractive place to work. That means your storytelling needs to be focused on what those candidates are looking for.
Whether it’s on social media, your website, or anywhere else you are telling your story, the main focus should always be on making your content candidate-centric. You want your employees to be the hero of your company’s story, and when you do that, it will attract other job seekers who also want to become a hero at your company.
5-Steps for Getting Started
Now that you know the importance of recruitment marketing and the different aspects that go into it, let’s go over what steps you need to take to get started.
1. Set your target audience
First things first, you need to know who your ideal candidate is. Knowing who the ideal candidate is will allow you to create meaningful content that can help you find the perfect employee for your organization.
Pro tip: Clearly define who your target audience is and make sure your whole team is on the same page and speaking to the same person/people.
2. Create quality content
Content is king and that applies to your recruitment marketing. High-quality, candidate-centric content will be critical to getting candidates to engage with your company.
Pro tip: An eye-catching design will get your content noticed. And don’t shy away from humor if that is one of your values. Be your true self in your content.
3. Perform an online audit of your brand
Job seekers are checking you out online and you need to be aware of what they are seeing. Has your company received reviews from employees on sites like Indeed or Glassdoor? Has someone responded to those reviews? Whether it’s external review sites, social media, your website, or even media mentions, you need to make sure that your online presence matches your storytelling to those job seekers.
Pro tip: Have current employees with diverse backgrounds perform this step with you. You will want this audit to be from multiple points of view.
4. Pay attention to your SEO
More than likely, your business has spent a fair amount of time perfecting your SEO for your lead generation web pages, but have you put the same amount of effort into your careers page? Your careers page is one of the best places to drive potential candidates into taking action and applying to your company. Make sure those candidates see that page when they are searching for jobs.
Pro tip: Perform a search for the job title you are looking to hire for. You may find effective places to post your jobs, such as Google Jobs. If you haven’t started your SEO audit yet, we have a good place for you to start.
5. Collect, Measure, and Adapt
One thing that’s essential to your hiring success is measuring your results and making changes based on those results. At the beginning of the process, there are analytics tools designed specifically for HR that can be set up to help you track, measure, and report on where people saw your ads, clicked on your website, and applied to your company.
This data is essential to figuring out your most effective referrals, search terms, and how well your careers page is converting website visitors to applicants. Equipped with this data, you can figure out what is working for you, or where you are losing potential candidates in the process.
Pro tip: Go through the application process with a test to see how easy it is to apply. An easy-to-follow application process with minimal clicks could lead to maximum results!
BONUS TIP: One of the best ways to attract the right people to your organization is to be very clear on your website and socially about the causes you support and the reasons why you support them. You want to attract the people that value the same things that you do. One of the easiest ways to communicate your organizational values is to show applicants what you care about.
Follow-Up
Following these steps and aligning your marketing and HR efforts will create a process that will save you time and money when you are looking to make your next hire. The best part is that each additional time you need to hire a new employee, you will have this process optimized, leading to better candidates, better branding, and reduced cost and time spent hiring.
Need help with your recruitment marketing? Reach out anytime!
