Last updated on January 11th, 2024
Companies are encountering massive hiring problems. Projects are understaffed, and there’s mounting pressure on others to deliver on time.
Despite having access to many tools and platforms and putting in hard work, recruiters struggle to fill the positions.
- 78% of recruiters face challenges in finding the right candidate
- 19% of them don’t even have a readymade talent pipeline of potential candidates
- 56% fear “they’ll never be able to fill” the required positions.
- 62% of them affirm that recruiting times are considerably longer nowadays
To add to that, skilled candidates have so many choices that recruiters are no longer the people asking them why they want to join the company. It’s the candidate asking, “Why should I join you.”
It indicates that hiring is no longer an HR problem. It has transformed into a “marketing problem.” Companies have to position themselves as a place that will allow employees to grow. They have to demonstrate the values they stand for, the work culture they believe in, and the opportunities they provide for employees to grow beyond work.
Think of it as selling a product, except this time, it’s the company that’s being marketed.
How To Do Recruitment Marketing?
Create Awareness
Employer branding is paramount. 75% of job seekers research the company’s reputation before applying. Recruitment marketing works on the same principles as usual marketing. Companies will have to generate interest among the candidates. They must think beyond publishing the openings on the website or job portals. They must create awareness about what the company does and how it helps employees grow in their careers.
Employees can be great brand ambassadors for marketing campaigns. To that end, recruiters can leverage networking platforms like LinkedIn to share content about the company. Publish videos and share posts from employees on how the company has played a role in nurturing them.
Besides salaries, candidates want work-life balance and expect companies to have a say on important issues such as climate change, diversity, and inclusiveness. Building authentic content and demonstrating on-the-ground solutions for these issues can also help the company position itself as a caring brand.
Share Brand Story
Everybody loves a good story, and there’s no better way than sharing the brand’s story to build trust among candidates. Google, for instance, has a dedicated blog called Life at Google, where employees share their stories.
Take the candidates on a journey of how the company started and how it has grown to the current level due to the employees’ efforts. Ensure that the stories are personal and make them engaging. Position the story in a way that the candidates look at it as a destination that will help them achieve their dreams.
Most importantly, clearly state the value proposition of the company. That could be anything from giving equal opportunities to everyone to putting people first.
Target the Right Candidates
Recruitment is not just about filling positions. It’s about hiring people who can believe and align with the company’s vision and help them achieve it. Like the buyers’ persona, companies must create a candidate’s persona to find the right person.
The recruitment campaigns cannot be targeted at everyone. Companies must be specific about the candidates they want to recruit. Building a persona will help them craft a good recruitment campaign that resonates with the right people. A candidate’s persona will allow the company to understand what they are looking for and target them with the right messages.
Improve Candidate Experience
Candidate experience counts as much as recruitment campaigns. 95% of candidates said that they would apply for a job again if they had a positive experience for the first time. They would also recommend others to apply.
In that light, create a positive experience for the candidates right from the time they apply till they are given the final offer or communicated about the status of their application. Keep the communication ongoing and keep them updated about their status regularly. Be responsive and invest in chatbots if required to engage with the candidates throughout the recruitment process.
Moreover, create a library of content such as FAQs, videos, the causes that the company supports, etc., to introduce the candidates to the company’s values and culture.
Use Innovative Recruitment Strategies
Sometimes the top skilled candidates are passive, i.e., not actively looking for a new job. To attract such talents, companies must use innovative recruitment strategies that go beyond normal ones. Events and hackathons are great platforms to build a talent pool of skilled candidates.
Many companies conduct Tech Challenge hackathons every so often. Top engineers come together to solve business challenges. That enables the management to identify top talent who could be the right fit for the company.
Similarly, Snapchat used its app’s geo-targeting and filtering features to target the engineers from Uber and Pinterest and market their job openings.
Conclusion
Companies often undermine the potential of recruitment marketing because it does not show results immediately. Sometimes the candidates might not buy into whatever the company offers.
But it’s essential to continue with the efforts to build a long-term and sustainable approach to hiring and growing the right talent. Here are a few marketing strategies that companies can use:
- Spend time understanding what candidates desire and what the company can offer to attract them.
- Understand the competitor’s recruitment strategy and the industry trends and use those insights to build a recruitment marketing strategy.
- Perform marketing activities consistently.
- To attract traffic, leverage social media and optimize the website, especially the careers or job page.
- Finally, continue measuring the impact of recruitment campaigns and marketing activities to understand what appeals to the candidates and experiment with different campaigns and marketing strategies.
Building a brand to attract employees is relatively new, and adopting it will not be easy for companies. But with consistency and the right tools and strategies, companies can assuredly create a strong talent pipeline.
