A person’s resume only tells you so much – it doesn’t paint the full picture of who the person really is, of their achievements, their strengths, and their weaknesses.
In the same way, there’s no one aspect of your business that gives prospective employees a good idea of who you are, what you stand for, and what you have to offer.
That’s where recruitment marketing comes in. Recruitment marketing can be defined as the use of marketing strategies to communicate the value of working for an employer in order to attract and retain high-quality employees. After all, businesses devote a lot of resources to marketing their products and services – why not apply similar methods to marketing their employer brands?
Recruitment marketing can help you weave all the pieces that make your company unique into a comprehensive strategy that gets your business seen by the right talent, in the right places, at the right time.
In this article, we’ll explore five simple ways to start using recruitment marketing tactics to ensure you’re proactively reaching and attracting the right talent.
1. Audit your employer brand.
When a candidate begins their job search, they typically start out on search engines and job boards to find opportunities that align with their interests and career goals. But, as they get closer to applying, many will turn to search engines to look for more information about your organization in general to answer questions like:
- What does your company culture look like?
- What are current and previous employees saying about you?
- What causes does your organization supports?
This is where your employer branding plays a giant role in your recruitment marketing. You want to put your best foot forward online and make a great impression on the best candidates so they’ll want to work with you and for you.
Do a search for your organization and audit what prospective candidates might see. What sites show up? What do your reviews say? Pay close attention to any review sites you weren’t aware of or any areas you need to improve to make a great impression with candidates.
You may even consider keeping a tracking spreadsheet of relevant links about your business that you can monitor regularly to ensure your employer branding is up to par all the time.
2. Tell your brand story on social media.
Social media is another big place that prospective candidates might look for you – or find you organically – and can be the perfect place to build a connection with new candidates through your brand story.
Social media gives you an easy way to share what’s at the heart of your organization with a wide audience that includes your customers, your existing employees, and potential employees.
Make sure you’re sharing causes you care about, highlighting your company culture, and spotlighting your current employees to give an outside audience a peek behind the curtain so they get the best sense of what makes your organization unique.
3. Spotlight your company’s core values.
When nearly 90% of millennials say they’d take a pay cut to work with a company whose mission and values align with their own, it’s crucial that your organization not only has clear core values but also shares them regularly.
And it’s important for your recruitment marketing that you spotlight the way your organization lives up to those core values – whether it’s by highlighting employer-sponsored days off, organizations your company supports, or ways your business gives back.
You can (and should) include this information on the career page of your website, on your social media pages, and in your job listings.
Job seekers want to see this information readily available so they can determine whether or not their values align with yours.
4. Don’t dismiss career page SEO.
You know that you need a careers page on your company website – but are you paying attention to the way you’re optimizing that page for search engines?
Most job seekers start their job search on Google (in fact, 83% of millennials begin their employment search in this way) so if your careers page isn’t optimized to show up for local job searches in your field, you’re missing out on top candidates.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is your best bet for ranking on search engines when top talent is looking for you – or for organizations like yours.
Make sure to optimize your careers page not only for your industry and the types of open positions you have but also for local SEO. You can do this by including information about your area, where your employees work (even if it’s remote!), and what’s close by. This can help you rank on Google for searches related to your industry and organization.
5. Focus on employee referrals.
Your current employees are your best advocates for your business. You already know them and love them – so encouraging them to send you new candidates they feel would be a fit is a win-win and a simple recruitment marketing strategy.
Consider creating an employee referral program to streamline (and incentivize!) the process. Current employees will become your own recruitment marketers – spreading the word about your organization, what’s great about it, and what open positions are available for their connections.
Employee referrals tend to be an underutilized source for high-quality candidates. A 2021 CareerPlug study found that, on average, an applicant who applied from a referral was 13 times more likely to be hired than an applicant who applied from a job board.
This word-of-mouth marketing builds strong social proof for your company and helps you get top candidates while rewarding your current employees.
Refresh your recruitment marketing
Recruitment marketing helps your organization get in front of prospective candidates without active outreach and can help you create a funnel of top talent from multiple sources – both online and off. Use these tips to refresh your recruitment marketing this year and breathe new life into the areas that matter most to potential employees.
About the author
Stephanie Heitman is the senior managing editor of the LOCALiQ blog where you can find her writing about all things digital marketing. When she’s not researching the latest and greatest marketing news and updates, she’s probably watching reality TV with her husband or playing with her two pups. Say hi to her on LinkedIn or Twitter.
