Marketing for successful recruitment might sound obvious, but there’s more to it than simply branding & advertising. We look at 8 critical steps
Despite the murmurs of a possible downswing in talent acquisition, the big picture is slightly different. HR firms and recruiters must look at new and innovative ways of locating, assessing, and hiring the best talent out there – fostering a modern workplace, that’s bright, vibrant, and brimming with energy.
Most talent acquisition challenges today can be effectively addressed by two primary drivers – a smarter and enriched candidate evaluation process, and a robust recruitment marketing blueprint.
Simply put, it’s managing the ‘front-end & the back-end’ of a store.
If executed intelligently, these two focus areas will drive awareness, interest, and unravel better, more qualified applicants, while also improving overall candidate experiences.
So, how do you make these elements work effectively?
To begin, let’s dig in a little deeper into what recruitment marketing really is. Broadly, Recruitment Marketing operates via three segments:
- Awareness – gathering recognition for your company’s brand, making possible applicants know what you’re all about, and seeking you out for possible opportunities;
- Interest – once having garnered attention, the applicant will desire more data on the company and possible job roles;
- Active search – the applicant will now look at actioning an application and it’s important to let him/her easily complete the task;
Therefore, the key elements of a successful recruitment marking initiative will largely carry these following eight components:
1. Smart Enterprise Branding
This is at the core of any recruitment marketing effort; before beginning work on anything else, it’s important to ensure one’s organizational branding is well-established and adequately evokes the company’s overarching vision. Leveraging the right data could simplify this processOpens a new window .
2. Building a Target Audience Profile
Next up, is to segment target candidates, using tools like the one recently launched by SAPOpens a new window . while there could be a number of roles to fill – from senior-most to junior-most – each has to be positioned differently. Every target group, and their motivations, aspirations, and principal areas of interest must be evaluated, building unique profiles in line with the same.
3. Maintain a Rich Careers Site
A company’s careers website is a recruitment marketing plan’s nerve-center; a hub for all the data one needs, and a space for greater engagement and connectivity, as Microsoft recently showcasedOpens a new window . Remember, it’s vital to offer information in a manner which allows job-seekers to rapidly locate what they are looking for, easily understand requirements, and search & apply for the jobs/roles posted.
4. Implementing Consistent Digital Messaging
Just like an online retailer’s activities, **modern HR teams/recruiters are also deploying programmatic ad buying and retargeting efforts** to continuously grab a job seeker’s attention, using solutions like 1plusXOpens a new window . It’s important to bear in mind, that talent attraction is all about creating a visually appealing design footprint and a highly captivating content ecosystem, which is compelling and memorable.
5. Leveraging the Power of Social Media
No matter what they say, the best way to connect with an applicant is social media – with several free toolsOpens a new window for this very purpose. it’s also the most preferred way to share a clear, accurate, and captivating image for one’s organizational values & culture. However, don’t just share data – listen to the online chatter, engage and connect, and at times, entertain as well.
6. Lead Capturing
This is par for the course; despite its various names (talent community, talent pipeline, etc.) lead capturing is essential for any recruitment marketing strategy. Generally, only 10% of your visitors actually end up completing an application – and so an easy-to-use lead capture form helps one to re-engage with interested applicants.
7. Developing a Candidate Communications & Nurturing Strategy
Once, a job seeker has joined a talent community, it’s key to consistently engage with him/her. Chat with the applicant. Evaluate their experiences. And finally, assess if there’s a fit. Embrace this audience as the fruits of one’s labor – given that, this is the space one has strived so hard to create.
8. Data Harvesting
To strengthen, fortify, and consolidate a recruitment marketing game-plan, one must go back to the drawing board and rethink strategies, if need be. For this, HR teams/recruiters must constantly store and later, evaluate data received on candidate movements, activities, successes and failures, garnering greater insights and improve decision-making.
There you have it. These are the sharpest (and most basic) ideas for envisioning a recruitment marketingOpens a new window plan. All it needs is the combination of a smart HR-tech solutions suite, which can automate and streamline all of the above. There are several tools and solutions suites out there, for organizations to select from; however, it’s must seamlessly fit one’s strategy.
HR teams must first plan their recruitment marketing pathway, identify key moves, and mark necessary milestones, and then select the best-in-class tech solution.