Recruitment marketing has never been more important. Why? Today’s hiring economy is highly complex and competitive–and finding top talent is harder than ever. Unemployment is at a seven-year low, and it’s taking increasingly longer to hire. If you’re an employer searching for top talent, this is likely something you live and breathe daily. And you may already be well aware that recruitment marketing is key to recruiting success.
Attracting candidates and retaining current employees is a lot like attracting and retaining customers. Consumers can take up to 12 touch points with a brand before they make a purchase decision. Candidates are researching your employer brand the same way: They’re following you on LinkedIn and Twitter, reading reviews of your managers on Glassdoor and checking out your latest blog posts and YouTube videos. That means your relationships with candidates don’t start from the point of applying; the begin long before — from the point of attraction.
Candidates seek a relevant, transparent, and personalized experience — and expect it in every interaction — before they even submit an application. How valuable are your social media posts? How authentic are your career site stories or employee testimonials? And how transparent are your emails?
Bottom line: How you treat every candidate has a direct impact on your brand. In today’s digital age, where sharing experiences online is commonplace and even expected, a poor candidate experience can be bad for business, bad for branding — and translate to millions in lost revenue annually.
Why is Recruitment Marketing a Key to Recruiting Success?
This changing talent acquisition landscape requires a more proactive, engaging, multi-touch approach. Today, we call that “Recruitment Marketing.” Recruitment Marketing is the process by which you find, attract, engage and nurture candidates — your talent acquisition leads — to build a more qualified pipeline of candidates and ultimately convert more quality hires.
Today, it’s important to understand that the goals and day-to-day focus of your recruitment marketing team is completely different from the goals and day-to-day focus of your recruiting team. A recruiting team’s job is all about conversion. They’re focused on converting the most highly qualified, most sought after applicants into hires.
Recruitment marketing’s job, which is completely different, comes first. Their focus is on developing strategies that allow them to attract leads and convert those leads into applicants, so that your recruiting team can choose from a larger and more qualified pool of applicants.
Recruitment marketing’s job is to attract and qualify candidate “leads” that can be delivered to the recruitment team to convert — and “close” with a job offer that’s accepted. This process, and the collaboration between recruitment marketers and recruiters are what is driving today’s modern recruiting organizations.
Today’s job seeker doesn’t want just a job. They want career development opportunities, stellar company culture, employee camaraderie, and a purpose. As a result, transparency up front, and in every touch point thereafter, is an essential start to building a better candidate experience.
Being transparent isn’t always as simple as it sounds. But a step in the right direction is a clear understanding of what exactly recruitment marketing is, and how to structure your team to deliver the best results. If this is what you’re focused on now and as we move into a new year, I hope you’ll join me and my friends at SmashFly for a webinar on best practices for recruitment marketing and how it’s driving transparency in today’s modern recruiting organizations. The webinar will be on Tuesday, November 17, at 11:00am PST / 2:00pm EST.
Here is what you can expect to learn:
- The edge of the talent funnel in HR and recruiting
- What recruitment marketing is and isn’t
- The critical importance of transparency in recruitment marketing (and how to be transparent)
- The primary components of a successful recruitment marketing strategy
Good stuff, I promise. Take a quick minute to register for the webinar using the link below and I can’t wait to see you there.
Webinar Registration Link: Why Transparency is Key to Recruitment Marketing Success & How to Master It, Tuesday, November 17, 11am PST/2pm EST
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