5 Key Considerations in Recruitment Marketing

Replacing an employee is an expensive proposition, so it’s important you bring on new hires with the expectation that they are interested in a career and long-term employment with your company. One way to attract employees with long-term potential is to optimize the recruitment process using five key strategies that ensure you hire employees who not only have the core competencies to perform a specific job, but who have the potential to grow and stay with your company.

• Advertise Your Culture, Not Just the Job

In addition to describing the position you’re trying to fill, tell potential employees why they would want to work at your company. The job you’re offering might be a common position applicants can find at a number of other companies, so tell potential hires about the following cultural aspects of your company:

• Social activities, including worksite employee functions, off-premises social activities, group charity work, employee contests, internal newsletter, etc.

• Your view of corporate social responsibility, such as a green office, charitable donations, internships, sponsorships of youth sports leagues, cause marketing, etc.

• Employee development, such as in-house training seminars, professional dues reimbursement, or tuition programs.

• Commitment to diversity.

Share employee stories using actual histories of outstanding employees who have been with you for years. Include employee testimonials that share how they feel about working at the company, and showcase any employer awards you’ve won.

• Use Trackable Lead Generation Efforts

It’s important to track any statistics you can gather from your social media accounts, website analytics, pay-per-click campaigns, and direct responses from job board postings. This will help you determine which of the following recruiting tools work best for you over the long term:

Job boards Job postings on your website Your social media accounts Job fairs Paid social media advertisements Trade publications and trade association website banners LinkedIn searches Headhunters Internal recruiting Succession planning Boomerang hiring (ex-employees) Previous applicants Employee referrals*

*Who knows better what your company needs are and who might fit in with your culture than your employees? Offer your employees a nice bonus if they find and recommend any employee you hire, and/or a bonus for any finalist candidates you bring in and interview.

• Use Inbound and Outbound Marketing Strategies

Use both traditional outbound marketing (want ads, job postings, etc.) and inbound marketing (social media and brand content). Posting job ads will always be an effective way to maximize the quantity of people who see your ads, but inbound marketing increases the quality of people who know you’re hiring. Inbound marketing relies more on two-way messaging, allowing potential talent to interact with you in other ways than simply by submitting a resume. This can include creating an interactive talent pool that attracts potential future employees to your site by providing them with some value.

Oracle has a helpful guide to helping human resources professionals better understand the difference between inbound and outbound recruiting marketing, and how to use them both effectively.

• Create a Talent Network

Don’t wait until you have a job to fill to start looking for employees. More employers are creating talent networks, or pools, to keep hot prospects in their pipeline even when the company doesn’t have a position to fill.

Many of the best potential employees for your company aren’t actively looking for work, but you want them to know about you. Do your social media accounts only target customers? If so, consider posts, tweets, and LinkedIn articles that interest potential future workers too.

Does your company website have a “Working for XYZ Corp.” page? If not, create one that explains your company values, corporate culture, employee testimonials, and other attractive aspects of employment with you. If you have no current openings, post the message, “No current openings. Please check back regularly for opportunities.” Give potential future employees a reason to keep coming back. Keep the page current with news items, employee promotion announcements, company awards, industry trends, etc. You might even have a separate blog for industry insiders on this page (vs. a blog for potential customers). This type of content helps build an opt-in talent network.

Look at online talent network-building tools including RolePoint, Symphony Talent (formerly Findly), and CareerBuilder’s Talent Network customizable recruiting websites.

• Use Tailored Images

Content with images gets roughly twice as many views as plain text. This doesn’t mean you can simply slap your company logo on a Facebook post or a picture of your office building on a tweet and expect to vastly increase readership. Use images of people who fit the demographic you’re looking to target, and in the same work setting you have.