No matter your business, you’re in the business of people. People are key to the growth and success of any company, and building a team comprised of diverse yet complementary personalities, passions and skill sets is one of the most challenging aspects of any business.
The process of finding great candidates and convincing them to apply is complex and requires a team-wide effort. It’s actually quite similar to how marketers attract and convert clients. That’s where recruitment marketing comes into play.
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WHAT IS RECRUITMENT MARKETING?
Recruitment marketing is the process of promoting your employer brand with the use of marketing methodologies throughout the recruitment life cycle to attract, engage and nurture relationships with qualified talent.
Let’s break that down a bit. There are four stages to the recruitment marketing funnel.
STAGE ONE: INCREASE AWARENESS
Top talent can be found all over the world. However, in today’s job market, the majority of candidates are passive, meaning they aren’t looking for jobs.
In order to get great candidates to apply for an open role, companies need to first market their company as a potential employer on platforms where passive candidates spend their time.
Above everything, it’s crucial to create great content that candidates will actually want to read, listen or watch and make your company stand out as a desirable employer.
STAGE TWO: GENERATE INTEREST
Now that you’ve got their attention, you’ll want to provide prospective candidates with information that will increase their interest in your company. Therefore, you’ll need to have a content game plan that is consistent and closely tied to you employer branding campaign.
The last thing you want to do is lose candidates because they’ve forgotten about your company or they aren’t clicking with your content.
Mapping out a robust content calendar with set deadlines will both ensure your story is being told in a thoughtful way, and it’s a surefire way to continuously generate interest among passive and active candidates.
STAGE THREE: NURTURE THE DECISION
Your net is cast, now it’s time to reel ‘em in. Candidates have consistently shown interest in your company, but what differentiates your opportunity from all the other fish in the sea? At this point in the funnel, you’ll want to provide more specific information on your company as a potential employer.
Now’s the time to promote your open roles, benefits, perks, compensation and anything else a candidate needs to know before making an informed decision to apply.
STAGE FOUR: DRIVE ACTION
While candidate’s may seriously consider your company in their next career move, there are several obstacles that prevent candidates from applying.
First of all, applying to jobs takes an absurd amount of time to create role-specific resumes, cover letters and portfolios that may never be reviewed. A simple solution — simplify the application and decision process. Cut out any unnecessary qualification and application requirements, and give them all the juicy details of your offer — yes that includes salary info.
Even if candidates make it this far and decide not to apply, don’t stop there. While it might not be the right time or circumstance for them to pursue your company, now is a perfect opportunity to grow your candidate pool that you can tap into when roles open up.
DEVELOPING A RECRUITMENT MARKETING PLAN
Before you even start thinking about developing a recruitment marketing plan, you need to define your employer brand. Employer branding is crucial for managing and influencing your reputation as an employer of choice and therefore, should encompass every aspect of your recruitment marketing plan.
Once you’ve got your employer branding down pat with a clear mission statement, core values and employee value proposition, start creating your plan with these six recruitment marketing tips.
1. SET GOALS
There’s no point developing a recruitment marketing strategy if you don’t have goals to measure your progress and adjust tactics along the way. Determine what it is that you want to accomplish — additional hires in a certain department, increase your candidate pool — whatever your goals may be, put them down in writing and establish a goal timeline with metrics to match.
2. DEFINE ROLES
Defining the roles that you’re hiring for will both refine your recruitment marketing strategy, and it will help in creating those ever frustrating job descriptions. It’s crucial that everyone involved in the hiring process is in agreement upon the finalized role because they will affect candidates’ experience with your company as a prospective employer.
Well-defined roles will set your hiring process and candidates up for success. Specific criteria helps candidates determine their level of qualification and understand the expectations for the position before they apply, thus saving you time sifting through applications and candidates time applying for jobs they’re actually qualified for.
3. ESTABLISH TARGET CANDIDATES
After you’ve defined your roles, consider the ideal candidate persona you need to fill the role and add to your team dynamic. The entire hiring team and team members who will interact closely with the candidate should be consulted on who their target candidate is and what attributes to look for in the application process.
This will ultimately make the decision process a faster and unanimous if everyone is on the same page.
4. IDENTIFY CHANNELS
Establishing target candidates will also help you determine where you will find them and how to attract them. Consider their background, experience and demographics and do some research on where those target candidates spend their free time on and offline.
While some candidates may be social media addicts, others may prefer attending in-person events for networking and career growth. You’ll want to closely track which channels attract the best candidates so that you can adjust your resource allocation.
5. ALLOCATE RESOURCES
Regardless of your company size and experience, you’ve got limited resources, especially when it comes to recruitment marketing campaigns. Steps one through four should help you get started with where and for who you are marketing and now it’s time to pinch the pennies.
Your marketing team can provide some insight into where their marketing efforts are successful, whether they be paid or organic and if they utilized more in-house or out-of-house resources. Closely document where, how and when you utilize resources so that you can adjust along the way.
6. CREATE A CONTENT CALENDAR
You’ve probably heard the term ‘Content is King.’ Regardless of the trending medium, the quality of the content you create will be have the highest impact on your employer brand and the people interested in your company.
However you decide to allocate resources, a large portion of it should be toward content creation. That being said, creating quality content takes a lot of time and effort, so you’ll need to create a content calendar with assignments and deadlines for your team.
Creating recruitment marketing materials should be just as much a priority as every other aspect of your recruitment game plan, including your careers page, social media and job descriptions.
BONUS TIP: CREATE CONTENT FOR EVERY STAGE OF THE APPLICATION PROCESS
When planning out your content calendar, consider this. Candidates rarely apply on their first visit, so you have to create a library of content that speaks to them throughout the job search. Here are three articles that demonstrate the full lifecycle of recruitment marketing, from awareness to interest, decision and conversion.
Awareness content is designed to drive awareness of your company as a potential employer. It’s not about pitching your jobs, so focus on subject matter that will be interesting to the reader. With this article, we joined in on an important and timely issue and introduced thousands of readers to the featured companies. No hard pitch, just useful information.
Decision content provides job seekers with more context about your company. It nurtures them toward an eventual application. Our Insider Spotlight articles are a great example of consideration content in action. They delve deep into the culture of specific companies, helping readers better understand what it would be like to work for them.
