Recruitment Marketing: Clemson’s Talent Team Takes it to a New Level with #ClemsonWorks

Facing tough hiring challenges from today’s super-low unemployment rate? You’re not alone. And, with typically smaller teams and budgets for talent than the corporate world, colleges and universities face extra challenges. But the talent team at Clemson University is using the latest digital tools and creative solutions to deliver powerful recruitment marketing programs and compete for top talent.  These strategies were outlined in a recent HR.com webinar, Recruitment Marketing 101.
 

Why recruitment marketing? ManPower Group’s 2019 Talent Shortage Survey of more than 24,400 employers around the world found that more than half (54%) are having trouble filling vacancies – the highest percentage in more than 10 years. Meanwhile, an Adecco USA survey last year found 37% of companies that hire temp staff loosened requirements in order to find talent. Among specific moves, 62% were lowering required experience, 52% were speeding up the hiring process; 50% were reducing education requirements; and 16% stopped background checks. (Twenty-one percent even stopped drug testing candidates.) This comes as the U.S. Department of Labor reported a December 2019 unemployment rate of 3.5%, the lowest in 50 years.

Developing smart recruitment marketing strategies – which build awareness and interest among job seekers – will help you grow your candidate base. Your efforts should include reaching out to those who aren’t currently looking. Why? Surveys find that only 12% of job candidates are actively looking for employment, while an additional 73% are either casually researching, reaching out to their own personal network or were open to talking with a recruiter. 

That’s a big audience, waiting and willing to hear about your organization. Here are five ways to get your recruitment marketing program started.

Start by boosting your employment brand. The content on your website and social media channels should answers the question job seekers have: “Why should I work here?” Rather than just list open jobs, show how enjoyable and rewarding it is to work at your company with profiles of employees, stories about corporate events, and footage of community or charitable projects. Invite your applicants to stay in touch via links to your social channels. 

“Top performers are not typically looking for a new job, so to reach them, you have to build awareness. With this in mind, we had to rethink our strategy. Clemson was doing a really good job advertising and promoting what it was like to be a student, or how to be an alum or donor, but not necessarily what it is like to work here,” says Josh Brown, Director of Talent Acquisition at Clemson. Many organizers forget that it is an important piece of their marketing that we as recruiters and as a talent acquisition team are responsible for coordinating.” 

Clemson University’s “Picture Yourself Here” recruitment campaign is designed to connect hiring managers and candidates as well as broaden its recruitment efforts nationwide. Clemson sends an information package to prospective employees, customized according to the job role that includes a Clemson-branded virtual reality viewer. It’s a hands-on visual way for candidates and their families to insert themselves on the University’s campus in South Carolina. 

“Often times, we aren’t just recruiting the candidate, but their family as well,” says “We received comments from spouses and children who said they were running around the house doing the virtual tour! And they were able to see and feel what it was like to work and live at Clemson, prior to even coming to campus. So, through this campaign, we’ve been able to promote and solidify Clemson’s brand nationwide, as we compete for top talent.” 

Brown’s campaign was so successful (Clemson increased its candidate acceptance rate.) that Workforce magazine awarded the university its Gold 2019 Optimas Award for recruiting. 

While having solid, compelling content is important (think storytelling), make your employment brand immediately recognizable and consistent. “It really gets back to the idea that your employer brand should stand out but should be complementary to your consumer brand,” adds Danielle Arrington, Clemson’s Recruitment Program Manager. “It can't conflict with the consumer brand. This should feel like a cohesive experience.” 

Broaden your candidate pool with social media. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) says 79% of candidates use social media, such as LinkedIn, Facebook and other sites, during their job search. So, your recruitment marketing efforts on social media can pay off big time if you target the right audience on the most suitable channel. Prioritize the sites that attract the demographic you want to reach. For example, the average Generation Z member (expected to add 61 million employees to the workforce in the years ahead) maintains seven social media profiles and gravitates toward Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube. 

Tailor your content to your audience and social channel. Make sure you use hashtags (#) to target industry groups and special interests. And use social platforms’ built-in tracking data, for example, page views, engagement, and followers, to gauge your outreach progress. You can also boost brand awareness by asking your existing employees and professional network to like, comment, share and repost. 

Clemson’s #ClemsonWorks social media campaign encourages employees to tell their own story of how rewarding it is to work for the university. By posting photos and videos via their own social media, and utilizing the hashtag ClemsonWorks, employees have driven over 150,000 interactions. 

“The great thing about this campaign was that its benefits were two-fold,” says Arrington. “First, we engaged and empowered our employees by giving them a platform to share their stories. Second, this simultaneously enabled us to utilize our own employees to serve as recruitment ambassadors. Who better to tell the story of what it’s like to work for Clemson than our employees? Plus, we now have content for employer brand marketing for the next year.” 

Create a communications experience for your job candidates. Think back to when you became a candidate for a new job. Wasn’t it reassuring to have regular contact with a hiring manager who was available to provide answers and information when you needed it? Communicating well shows you care about the new relationship, and that’s a good way to hold onto your candidate. 

So, consider all of the touch points that your candidates will have. Where will they first meet your talent brand, e.g. on an online job board, your website, LinkedIn? It’s helpful to anticipate and create a plan to address the questions they'll need answered at each stage of contact. For example, if you invite communication via social media, make sure you stay on top of incoming messages. If you wait too long to get back in touch with a potential candidate, they may lose interest or accept an offer elsewhere. Not sure if your candidate is still interested? Be proactive and call or direct-message them. Excellent communication touchpoints strengthen your brand. 

Nurture your talent contacts – even your silver medalists or candidates you ‘lost’. Even if a promising candidate winds up accepting a job elsewhere, keep the relationship warm because employees often look for better opportunities (Younger Baby Boomers held an average of 12.3 jobs from ages 18 to 52, according to a 2019 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics survey). After all, you already have former candidates’ resumes, references and interview feedback on file. If these former candidates once again become open to accepting one of your positions, you can decrease time-to hire. 

When a new position becomes available, call a past candidate, acknowledge your last interaction (even if you turned them down for the last job) and invite them to an in-person interview. You should also recruit passive candidates, that is, references listed on your active candidates’ applications.
 
Clemson University has built a database of 3,100 passive candidates through using SkillSurvey’s reference-checking and sourcing technology that links references to the school’s branded career page after they complete their reference feedback. Once there, passive candidates create a profile, upload a resume or share what kind of position they’re seeking. Clemson recruiters then get busy engaging, including on LinkedIn groups where passive candidates post.

Demonstrate value to your organization. Align your recruitment marketing strategies and tactics to your organization’s strategic initiatives. You’ll boost your ability to demonstrate that your efforts are paying off for the organization. For many companies today, diversity and inclusion (D&I) are top strategic initiatives. Does your campaign, its messages, images and other recruiting material reflect that? Keep monitoring whether the desired audience is being reached via social media, and if not, consider switching platforms or shifting more focus to one or another. 

To show your colleagues and senior management your progress, create and share detailed reports – with charts on social post view, shares, follows, totals on new passive candidates – illustrating how recruitment marketing is contributing to both your talent acquisition goals and supporting the organization’s overall strategic objectives.  

Your end goals for recruitment marketing should be greater awareness, interest and consideration in your organization from both active and passive candidates. Creating a compelling recruitment marketing plan that builds excitement around your employment brand will give you an added edge in today’s highly competitive job market.

Watch the webinar to hear more of Clemson’s best practices and learn more about how to build a great recruitment marketing program.

Author Bio

Christine Ottow is Director of Marketing Communications at SkillSurvey, Inc. Connect Christine Ottow Visit www.skillsurvey.com