11 Best Recruitment Marketing Tips for 2024
Having worked early on in my career in various Human Resources positions, I have to say that one of the most challenging parts of the job is finding good candidates suitable for hiring. Successful recruitment and selection campaigns can be really difficult to design and execute. And now in my communications, digital marketing, graphic design and web design roles, that training and experience has come in very handy. In addition to handling new employee recruitment for a number of our clients, we are also involved in the development of a number of large-scale corporate recruitment initiatives.
So, what are some of the challenges? I will be the first to say that good employees are extremely hard to find. And I’m not even referring to well-educated or well-trained individuals – I’m referring to finding candidates with a strong work ethic that are willing to make long-term commitments to an organization.
So, while good employees are hard to find, secure jobs with good pay and advancement opportunities are hard to find too. But they are out there – and the key is for these companies to have a strong recruitment strategy in place that really showcases what they have to offer to ensure they are attracting the best candidates.
In this article, we will review:
- What is recruitment marketing.
- Why is recruitment marketing important.
- What are the 11 best recruitment marketing strategies to attract top talent.
What is recruitment marketing?
In simple terms, recruitment marketing is how you market your business/organization to new prospective employees. It is about using a combination of online and traditional strategies and tools to bring new talent to your business instead of searching for individuals with those skills, experience, and background. It not only includes promoting a specific job opening but also your organization, its mission, culture, brand and growth opportunities to entice job applicants to consider your business and apply.
Why is recruitment marketing important?
Having a strong recruitment marketing strategy is crucial especially today with the tight labour market since competition for qualified candidates is so intense. Candidates search for career opportunities the same way consumers search and shop for products or services by reading reviews, social media posts and visiting corporate websites. When done effectively, recruitment marketing will attract a more qualified talent pool, improve candidate experience and be able to hire faster.
Here are 11 of the best recruitment marketing strategies to help your business attract top talent:
1. Build a strong brand that attracts great candidates
To stand out in the crowd, employers need a strong brand presence that potential employees want to be associated with. Building a brand strategy for both consumers and for talent recruitment takes time but is well worth it. For many employers, attracting and retaining good employees is a challenge. By creating a brand that connects a company’s values, culture and policies into one cohesive brand image, can help attract a pool of strong candidates and also retain good employees.
2. Create a well thought out career section on your website
Treat your search for finding the best employees as you would to find the best customers! Target your ideal candidates by launching a recruitment campaign from your own corporate website. This tactic can be highly effective as you have much more flexibility to create customized ads with supporting information about your company and its culture.
When designing an online recruitment campaign on your own company website, the sky’s the limit. You are not contained by a standard form or template. When designing your website career page consider the following:
- Include FAQs to help applicants learn more about the position. Compile the most frequently asked questions about your company and share them. Your recruits will thank you!
- Add a downloadable brochure is a great way to summarize your company and a quick reference for them. Include all of the pertinent information about your company.
- Allow website career page visitors to “meet the recruiter” before showing up for the interview. Consider adding photos of the recruitment team along with their favourite interview questions and tips. What a fun way to put candidates at ease.
As you search out your ideal candidate, think like they would think. Appeal to their needs and desires. Provide your website career page with the details they need in a way they would find most interesting and useful. Just as you have a sales value proposition, consider the employee value proposition.
Be sure to keep the following things in mind and ensure they are properly communicated on your career web page, online posts or on your advertisements.
- Compose attention-grabbing, detailed job descriptions that include specific titles, a captivating summary and lists all position attributes (responsibilities, skills and day-to-day activities).
- Compensation can include salary, raises and promotions, and an evaluation system.
- Benefits can mean a variety of perks but usually includes time off, holidays, health insurance, retirement plan, education contributions and flexibility.
- Career looks different to everyone but possibly include the ability to progress and develop, stability, internal and external training or education programs, evaluation and feedback.
- Work environment can vary greatly within companies. Be sure to share your philosophy on recognition, autonomy, achievements and work/life balance.
- Culture in workplaces has changed so much in the past few years. It’s a good idea to convey your corporate culture to job seekers so they can determine if it’s a good fit for them.
You may even consider creating a quiz that can help candidates decide if they’d be a good fit. For example Monster.com provides 10 career aptitude tests that you could use as inspiration to create your own custom quiz to include on your website to help candidates discover what role is right for them.
Similar to the quiz, you can create a decision tree that guides the prospect through different career paths and roles within your company to see what best suits their abilities and interests.
As you can see, there are many great options to create an amazing career section on your company website to showcase your brand and culture. If you are not sure where to start, our web design agency can help. We can provide branding, creative writing, graphic design and we built beautiful search engine and user friendly custom websites.
3. Use real photos and videos, be authentic
People want to know what you’re really all about. They want to see real people with real stories. You may consider ditching the stock photos and opt for actual photos of your team and office. Record a quick audio or video clip with your President or HR Team that explains what you’re looking for. Add employee video testimonials so people can get a feel for how it would be to work with your organization. It’s an effective way to communicate lots of information without wading through paragraphs of text. And, in the process, you come across as very approachable and authentic.
4. Live chat with prospective candidates
Consider adding a chat system to your career page so your HR Manager can answer questions from possible contenders. Responding quickly to basic questions such as where the job is located and how to find certain information on the website could make a difference between someone leaving the website or applying for the position.
5. Grow your candidate pipeline with SEO and SEM
Did you know that most people looking for a career change will use Google or other search engines to search for job opportunities? Candidates are searching for jobs in your city, your industry or likely in your company. According to this study, 1 in 4 people conduct online search before they even commit to job hunting.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) are a great ways to help you reach job seekers during their search and increase your website’s ranking.
When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), the key is to have a well built website that is clean coded, fully responsive that works perfectly on all devices with well written engaging content with keywords. One disadvantage is that SEO is an ongoing tactic that takes time. The benefits of also running SEM campaigns is that they can be setup within a matter of days which is great if you have to promote a time-sensitive job opening. SEM also known as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, is when you set a budget and bid on keywords so that your website will appear above the organic results. PPC works great since you only have to pay when a user clicks on your website ad.
6. Promote your business on job boards
For an integrated recruitment marketing campaign, consider adding your company and opportunities on job boards. Many job seekers rely on various industry specific job boards when searching for a new career. It saves them time since they can use filter options and browse by job titles, location, education requirements or specific companies.
Having your company information and career opportunity on other job sites is a great opportunity to build awareness and get noticed. Make sure you add a link back to your career web page so prospective employees can see if they would be a good fit.
Keep in mind that not all job board and recruitment websites are created equal. Depending on the level of education and experience required, sites like Indeed may work for entry-level or summer internship positions, but for management or highly skilled positions, these sites are not a good fit. Postings on these sites generally result in an avalanche of under-qualified individuals applying for positions beyond their capabilities. This results in more work for the recruitment team as they sift through the candidates.
7. Optimize the hiring process with recruitment software
Consider using recruitment software and integrate it with your website to help streamline the process for both candidates and your HR team. Recruitment software can be a huge time saver as it optimized the whole process from growing your candidate database, keeping track of job applicants, finding and attracting candidates to reviewing resumes and sending out employment offers.
Companies like ZipRecruiter or Prevue HR, can narrow your target and assist the HR team by eliminating unqualified candidates, launching an assessment and even providing interview questions based on the position.
8. Use Social Media
Social media can tie into your company’s branding and corporate recruitment campaign and reap big rewards. Marketing and high-tech positions, in particular, do well because potential candidates are generally very connected and web savvy. Creating a social media recruitment strategy is well worth your time.
Social media opens up a lot of possibilities when it comes to recruiting strategies:
- Consider a video “tour” of your office to highlight your team and give a true sense of the environment
- A visually attractive, interactive SlideShare is very shareable
- A “day in the life” video will effectively communicate the role and the atmosphere
- Create a fun infographic that clearly communicates the role, the expectations, the compensation, the benefits, etc.
Recruiting via your social media channels allows your business to share job postings with your entire network and encourages a two-way conversation. Not only that, if the people you reach aren’t interested in that job opening, there’s always the chance they may know someone who might be a good fit.
When sharing posts from company events or day-to-day work life, you are giving potential applicants a glimpse into your company’s culture. When members of your company also share this content on social channels, the reach rises exponentially.
9. Have a Job Fair
Job fairs are great – especially if your company is the only one there! Having to compete with numerous other companies for the best candidates is not ideal; so consider holding your own job fair. You can meet and greet potential employees up close and personal.
You may also consider setting up a booth at trade shows for your industry. This is a great way to hold informal interviews and get the word out that your company is hiring.
10. Start an Employee Referral Program
Hardworking, motivated people usually make a habit of surrounding themselves with other highly capable professionals. Although employees are probably sharing job openings with their network of friend and family, an employee referral program that’s well-developed can improve this behaviour even more. By having contests or giving bonuses for referrals this motivates your team to help bring new great talent into your organization.
11. Be Creative
And finally, when it comes to recruitment ads, videos and literature, be creative. Things like humour and clever eye-catching graphics can go a long way to communicate who you are and what your corporate culture is all about.
Don’t be afraid to hold the bar high with your expectations for new hires. As long as you can back it up with a great work environment, competitive remuneration packages and employee perks, why not put a call out for only the best applicants? What’s the worst that could happen? You might only get only 15 applicants from the cream of the crop instead of 150 mediocre resumes. I, for one, as a former HR Professional, had better things to do with my time than root through a mountain of poorly written resumes from under qualified respondents. But that’s just me.
About ZOO Media Group
London, Ontario based ZOO Media Group has extensive experience working with Human Resources departments on projects ranging from employee recognition programs, virtual job fair sites, employee handbooks, and communications for new-hire orientation programs. We help HR departments develop impactful and engaging materials that both attract new hires and connect with current employees. We also provide custom web design and intranet website development, search engine optimization and digital marketing services to companies throughout North America. Contact us today to learn more.
