The 5 Components Of New Age Recruitment Marketing

Building a better base of qualified candidates

The job of a recruiter has never been harder.

With competition at an all-time high, led by historically low unemployment rates, only those companies that truly stand out with their recruitment strategy can survive.

But there is one aspect of recruitment that far too many organizations – both standard companies and even recruitment specialists – overlook. No matter how proven their process or how skilled their recruiters are, if an organization is falling behind in its recruitment marketing, its talent will always reach a self-imposed ceiling.

In order to attract top talent, today’s recruiters are increasingly forced to take on the dual role of recruiter and marketer. Highly skilled job seekers, especially passive candidates, now hold all the power. Essentially, jobs are products that recruiters and companies must sell to a workforce that has the luxury of choice like never before. And the challenge of selling is getting harder by the day.

Having a proper recruitment marketing strategy not only makes the job of a recruiter easier when it comes to getting talent in the door and working, but it can actually help build a better base of qualified candidates. Instead of recruiters scouring LinkedIn and hammering the phones for hours at a time, a successful recruitment marketing strategy actually encourages highly skilled talent that fits your culture to seek out jobs at your company.

Think of recruitment marketing as top-of-the-funnel activity, where an organization is simply creating awareness of its employment brand and beginning to build a basic interest in the company. Imagine how much simpler the life of a recruiter is when he/she doesn’t need to explain to a candidate what a company does or what it stands for before even getting into job specifics. Or when they don’t need to correct misinformation that a candidate received from their colleagues, their friends, in the news, on social media, and on sites like Glassdoor and LinkedIn. When a job seeker knows what a company stands for and has an accurate sense of what it’s like to work there before talking to a recruiter, it makes the sourcing, filtering and hiring process that much easier.

It’s easy to confuse a recruitment marketing strategy with a traditional marketing or brand strategy. Don’t make that mistake. A recruitment marketing strategy goes well beyond a logo, company brand or a simple advertising campaign. It includes a number of components that, together, help to attract, engage and evaluate potential candidates. Here are the five components of recruitment marketing built for today’s new age workforce.
 

1. A stand-out employment brand
 

An employment brand successfully and concisely answers the age-old question -- “What’s it like to work for your company?”
 
At Yoh, we like to say your employee value proposition and branding strategy begins from the moment before the candidate even considers you as a potential employer all the way to the time they leave the company for a new position. No longer can companies think strictly about job responsibilities, salary, and benefits when pitching a candidate. Certainly, they’re key components, but employers should immediately know how to answer questions about the day-to-day and life experience of working for the company.
 
An employment brand should reflect your company’s mission, vision, values, and culture. It shouldn’t reflect what leaders would ideally like it to be but what current and former employees would say it is. It’s much better to be accurate and truthful than to say you’re “like the Google of the healthcare space” when the reality is much different.
 

2. Candidate experience and communication
 

Everyone has had a bad candidate experience at one point in their life. According to a 2017 CareerBuilder report, 78 percent of candidates say the overall candidate experience is an indicator of how a company values its people. Beyond the interview, a recent Talent Board research report said that 69 percent of candidates never receive an email thanking them for applying and 52 percent receive no communication 2 to 3 months after applying. Think about what this poor recruitment process says about your employment brand overall. It may seem obvious, but the same message you want to convey to candidates about your employment brand needs to be conveyed throughout the entire recruitment and hiring process. That includes the recruiters, the receptionist, HR, hiring managers and fellow employees. Your recruitment process should be smooth and efficient. It should exemplify what it means to be a part of your organization. If not, you’re selling yourself short and negatively marketing your recruitment before it really even begins.
 

3. Social media recruitment
 

According to a recent iCIMS Job Seeker Report, a whopping 94 percent of candidates visit a company’s social media page during their job search. At the very least, your organization should have a LinkedIn, Facebook page and/or Twitter account. Today, many organizations are using these channels, as well as Instagram, not to push their products or services but to tout their employment brand with content and photos of employees in action. Don’t think of it as sharing jobs but rather sharing stories about life at your company. Social media can be the best way to offer a true glimpse into life at your company, with insights from and features on actual employees.
 

4. Content marketing
 

Content marketing can mean a lot of things. When it comes to recruitment marketing, it includes everything from employee profiles, success stories, company videos, podcasts, thought leadership, recruitment web pages, careers pages, employee interviews, infographics and more. Loading your website, social media channels, and company newsletters with useful, easy-to-read content that gets at the heart of your employment brand will help inform potential candidates about what your company and employment experience is all about.
 

5. AI and Big Data
 

Finding the right candidate for the right job is easier said than done. Those organizations that can supplement their sourcing skills with AI and big data have the opportunity to completely reinvent the recruitment process. Today, AI technology has the power to analyze massive amounts of data collected on new hires against job performance, retention and success to create a constant feedback loop that continuously updates and defines the qualities of a successful (and unsuccessful) employee. Just the same, data is being collected on all recruiting efforts to see what messages and strategies are working and which are not, informing a smarter recruitment strategy.
 
While AI and big data can’t eliminate the recruiting function entirely, it does enhance a recruiter’s ability to do their job efficiently by identifying candidates that will be successful much earlier in the process. A more accurate process for recruiters means a more accurate placement for candidates.

Recruitment marketing has completely transformed over the last 5-10 years, and it will no doubt continue to change as technology, the job market, and the modern workforce evolve. Those organizations that think strategically about their recruitment marketing efforts will give themselves a leg up on what is already a severely competitive talent market.