A new year often goes hand in hand with a new start! I want to help you kick off 2019 by offering you 3 ways to level up your recruitment marketing strategy. These 3 insights will launch you into Q1/19 with the tools to recruit top tier talent to help support and surpass your organizational goals.
In my previous article, What is Recruitment Marketing, I defined recruitment marketing as a new HR discipline and delved into how it requires recruiters to act and think like marketers in order to successfully attract talent. Now more than ever, recruitment teams are relying on skill sets traditionally associated with marketing and sales. If you haven’t already read that article, I highly recommend doing so.
Once you have an understanding of the basic fundamentals of recruitment marketing, this article will reinforce those skills by helping you implement 3 scalable tactics to level up your Recruitment Marketing Strategy:
- Excite candidates with your brand’s intangible benefits
My experience as a recruitment marketer has taught me that candidates need to be sold on your company before they apply. Having a favorable perception of your brand by the public plays a significant role in its ability to attract high-quality candidates. It begins with name recognition, likeability, and concrete details like compensation and benefits, but in today’s job marketplace candidates are looking much deeper than that.
Potential candidates are most likely going to closely research and follow your company’s culture. They want to know what it’s like to work for your company before they decide to throw their hat into the ring.
You can help to create a favorable perception, and give candidates a good impression of your company’s culture, by doing the following:
- Prove that you are an employer of choice through employee testimonials. Hearing positive first-hand accounts of what it’s like to work for you from current and past employees will go a long way with prospective candidates.
- Create an aesthetically pleasing and branded career portal
- Post behind-the-scenes brand videos that highlight the work environment, culture, and camaraderie among all levels of staff.
- Use your social media platforms and blog site to post pics from company-wide events, volunteerism and social activism, as well as candid pics of engaged employees
- Create a first-class candidate experience
You can convince active and passive job seekers that you are the best option by offering them a pleasing candidate experience. If a candidate has a negative experience early on in the application process, they are most likely not going to pursue an opportunity with you or accept an offer.
There are many ways that you can offer a top-notch experience to job seekers. At the top of the list is flexibility in your communication. It is very important for candidates to know where they stand during the process.
- Offer tools for candidates to apply and then chat with recruiters. These tools will not only keep talent engaged, but also improve response rates.
- Send a follow-up email thanking them for applying
- Inform or remind them of the next steps in the process
- If the hiring process takes longer than expected, make sure that you communicate with candidates and offer updates
- Close the loop with candidates who are not selected for an opportunity with your company. Do not leave them dangling indefinitely.
- Ask for feedback
In addition, you may need to use a software solution that integrates your talent acquisition platforms and HR technologies. The world of talent acquisition is fast-paced and the technology you use on a daily basis needs to keep up. Software solutions that provide agility and scale, with enhanced features and functionality will optimize your efforts.
- Create a referral program to leverage your employee’s networks
As a recruiter, you may need help being steered in the right direction. Consider recruiting great talent by leveraging the great talent you already have in your employ. This extends the pool of potential candidates beyond the recruiter’s networks to their employees networks as well.
Happy, satisfied employees are likely to share their positive experiences with friends, family and other professionals. What’s great about this approach is your employees already have familiarity with your brand, and can act as brand ambassadors during the hiring process. A great benefit of this type of program is that it also reinforces a strong company culture
You can bolster an employee referral programs as a top source for quality hires by offering a tangible reward to employees who refer a hire candidate. Here are a few recommendations to incentivize employee participation:
- Treat them to lunch
- Offer paid time off
- Offer a small bonus
- Gift cards
- Allow the opportunity for telework
The level of initial effort required to attract top tier talent has increased. Your recruitment marketing strategy must be devised and applied long before candidates ever start looking into your organization.
Understanding what prospective candidates are seeking from an employer, as well as what they expect from the overall hiring process is key. Generating brand awareness and excitement, creating a first-class application experience, and leveraging your employees’ networks are 3 vital steps toward leveling up your recruitment marketing program.
