Recruitment Marketing: What is it and how can you use it?
Growing a business isn’t a one-person job.
You know this, which is why you’re looking to hire quality employees who can help grow your business to its full potential.
This is where recruitment marketing comes in.
So, what exactly is recruitment marketing? How does it work? And, how can you create an effective recruitment marketing strategy?
This article will teach you everything you need to know about recruitment marketing so that you can start hiring ideal employees who will help your business excel.
What is recruitment marketing?
Recruitment marketing is the process of marketing your brand to ideal employees, guaranteeing that you attract, engage, and build relationships with them. The end goal is for them to apply for a job at your company.
To understand the process, let’s break down the four stages of recruitment marketing:
Stage 1: Increase brand awareness
Most job candidates are considered passive, meaning that they’re not actively searching for open job positions. As such, you, as the employer, need to generate visibility and engagement on the platforms that your ideal candidates spend their time on to attract their attention.
You can do this by creating valuable and engaging content that they’ll find interesting and that’ll make your company stand out as a desirable employer.
To target the right people, you can create an employee persona that outlines exactly who your target candidate is, including their: traits, experience, behaviors, and other factors.
Stage 2: Generate interest
After managing to attract candidates’ attention, you need to maintain their interest. You can do this by crafting a robust content game plan that tells your brand’s story in a meaningful and interesting way.
Keep in mind that you need to make your company look as appealing as possible, as the candidate will always be wondering what’s in it for them.
Stage 3: Nurture their decision
Now that you’ve managed to not only attract them but also keep their interest, the next step is to reel them in.
At this point in the recruitment marketing funnel, you need to provide more specific information about your company and why it’s so great to work there.
Promote your open job vacancies, benefits, compensation, and anything else that might turn the tide in your favor and ultimately help them choose you.
Be sure to convey to them why your company and positions are the number one option instead of the other positions that are available on the market.
Stage 4: Propel action
At this point, it’s time to encourage them to apply for the job.
Do this by making the application and decision process as easy as possible by removing any unnecessary obstacles in the application process.
Provide candidates with all the information that new hires are generally surprised by.
If, for some reason, the candidate doesn’t decide to apply, don’t be discouraged. While it might not be the right time or circumstances for them to apply now, they may change their mind in the future.
They’ll be in your talent pipeline, and you’ll be able to contact them again in the future if any positions open up.
Why is recruitment marketing important?
Here’s a list of the top five benefits of recruitment marketing:
1. Better quality candidates
Let’s cut to the chase — you’re looking for candidates that can make a strong impact on your company, right?
Well, as you probably know, that’s no easy task. In fact, 76% of talent acquisition teams say that finding quality candidates is their top challenge.
This is mainly because many of the high-quality candidates who browse your website don’t end up applying for the position since they’re not ready to take on the application process. And, unfortunately, there’s no guarantee that they’ll come back.
Recruitment marketing allows you to get past this barrier by turning these candidates into leads while they’re on your platforms. This way, you’ll be able to take them through your recruitment funnel at a pace they’re comfortable with.
2. Lower hiring costs
Without clear and effective recruitment marketing efforts, you might as well be throwing your money down the drain.
Contrary to the popular belief that recruitment marketing is expensive, it’s a lot more cost-effective than having no plan at all.
Why? Because if you’re constantly shooting in the dark, you’ll be spending time and money on the wrong platforms, the wrong content, and the wrong people.
Creating an effective recruitment marketing strategy means that you’ll know exactly what needs to be done and where it needs to be done, which means you’ll be doing it right from the get-go.
3. Increased brand awareness
By sharing your message across many platforms, your brand awareness will increase — which means that your company will become more popular among workers.
The messages that you share can be in any shape or form. However, it’s a great idea for you to use videos, as video marketing has proven to be one of the most effective marketing methods in today’s digital age.
Similar to how video testimonials can be used to attract prospects, they can also be used to attract employees.
For example, have a look at this employee testimonial video from iSolved:
This video is extremely effective since it’s short and sweet while explaining exactly what prospective employees can expect if they decide to work at this company.
As such, it allows the potential candidate to qualify themselves for the position and gives them a reason to want to join iSolved.
4. Great candidate experience
Your potential candidate’s relationship with you doesn’t start when they click apply. It starts the moment they become aware of your brand.
Therefore, the pre-application stage is vital since this is the time that the candidate gets to know your business and learn more about your company culture, values, mission, etc.
Recruitment marketing makes this a lot easier since it gives potential employees all the information that they need.
With personalized content and communication that candidates can relate to, you’ll be giving them a great experience that will make them more likely to apply.
5. Increased diversity
89% of talent professionals agree that multigenerational workforces make a company more successful.
Recruitment marketing helps you attract diverse candidates, as it makes it possible for you to target different candidate personas. On top of that, it also gives you the ability to identify the best sources for qualified applicants through marketing analytics.
This way, your organization becomes a lot more proactive and can cater your content marketing strategy, including your social media content, blog content, and video content, to these diverse audiences.
Here’s an example of an employee persona:
6. Increased employee engagement
93% of job seekers say that it’s important for them to be informed about all the aspects of a position before accepting a job offer.
Recruitment marketing makes this possible, as it engages the entire workforce and makes it possible for your employees to “sell” your brand to job seekers by telling your brand’s story.
Your existing employees can tell prospective employees what the job’s like, if the job includes advancement opportunities, what their co-workers will be like, and more. In turn, this can increase your current employee engagement.
Again, employee testimonial videos can be of great help here, as you’ll be able to cover a lot of points in a short, easily digestible, and engaging video.
Top 5 recruitment strategies
Implementing an effective recruitment strategy will help you attract quality candidates, give you great ROI, and save you a lot of time. Here are the five most successful recruitment marketing strategies that you can consider:
1. Targeting passive candidates
Unfortunately, all the top talent on the job market is gone within ten days. This means that if you don’t get your timing perfect (with your talent acquisition staff practically sleeping at their desks), then you won’t get the top talent that you need.
Luckily, there’s an easy way to fix this — by targeting passive job seekers.
Since 73% of job candidates are passive job seekers, you’ll be much more likely to find quality candidates who meet all your requirements and fit perfectly into your organization.
However, keep in mind that you’ll have to work extra hard to get these applicants to apply since they’re not as motivated as active job seekers. Therefore, you need to wow them at every turn with your content and methods.
2. Using niche job boards
Find your candidates where they are. A great way to do this is to post your job postings on niche job boards.
Niche job boards cater to job seekers in specific industries. As such, your ideal candidates will be so much more likely to come looking for available jobs on these boards.
For example, if you’re searching for an IT Project Manager with eight years of experience, put your job post on a tech job board such as dice.com rather than simply posting it on LinkedIn, where anyone will be tempted to apply even if they don’t meet your requirements.
3. Implementing employee referral programs
Employee referral programs can be an extremely effective way to hire employees, especially in the current employee acquisition environment that consists of more job openings than qualified candidates.
Employee referral programs offer many benefits, including:
- Better conversion rates
- Significantly lower hiring costs
- Higher employee retention rates
- Higher quality candidates
- Stronger employer branding
- Shorter hiring time
- Shorter onboarding process
You can set up an effective employee referral program by creating an easy referral process, setting goals, deciding on efficient incentives, and announcing the program to your current employees.
By using this method, you’ll essentially be hitting two birds with one stone, as your employees will be doing the hard work for you while at the same time being extremely satisfied with their reward. It’s a win-win.
4. Focusing on a good employer brand
Employer branding is one of the main elements that influence the quality of applicants that you get.
What’s employer branding?
Employer branding involves promoting your company as the best employer to work for to your ideal candidates.
As easy as it sounds, employer branding does require a significant investment of money and time if you truly want it to work. However, the investment is worth it, as employer branding can offer a massive return on investment (ROI).
A great way to promote your employer brand is by using videos that explain your company and all of its benefits. Learn how to outsource your video testimonial services here.
5. Using proven data to improve your hiring process
If you want to avoid wasting your time and money when it comes to recruitment, you can’t simply shoot in the dark. You need to work based on proven methods and data by using an Applicant Tracking System (ATS).
Some of the most important metrics that you need to track include:
- Application completion rate
- Cost of hire
- Time to hire
- Qualified candidate rate
- Candidate response rate
- Place of application
By tracking and measuring each of these metrics, you’ll be able to see which methods are working best for you, making it possible for you to improve them even more.
Create your recruitment marketing strategy
Recruitment marketing is vital if you want to attract top talent to your business. Now that you’ve seen the top five recruitment strategies, you can choose the ones that will work best for you and start implementing them today.
Remember that your hiring strategy needs to be well planned and catered to your specific candidate personas to draw your ideal candidates to your business.
Want to use employee video testimonials to attract top talent to your business? We’d love to help you create quality videos that your prospective employees can’t refuse.
