However, while increased job vacancies bode well for employees, companies are under pressure to fill these openings in anticipation of increased consumer demand. In an ever-competitive and digitising market, traditional hiring strategies are no longer effective. Instead, recruitment marketing is now an essential part of the recruitment process. Candidates have more choices than ever before, and this “candidate-led” market is making companies consider their approach to retaining and attracting employees.
Companies must sell their culture as much as the role; candidates want to know what benefits are in it for them and if the working environment matches their expectations. No longer will candidates struggle through a job that isn’t quite right for them, or that has been missold or misleading, so employers must think about transparency when recruiting.
Understanding Recruitment Marketing
Recruitment marketing is the process of using marketing initiatives such as content creation and social media penetration with the goal of attracting top talent. This garners you organic followers from both active and passive job seekers, thereby streamlining the recruitment life cycle. However, there is a decline in organic social media traction. To reach an audience, employers should consider a social media budget or a large company-wide push around recruitment drives. By utilising recruitment marketing, these roles can be quickly filled without compromising quality, thanks to the nurturing of a broadened talent pool.
As seen throughout Covid, the employment market can change quickly. Companies must adapt and find creative solutions to recruitment challenges.
How Your Company Can Adopt Recruitment Marketing
Recruitment marketing is all about reaching prospects with minimum effort from their end. Considering that the average person in the UK spends 109 minutes on social media per day, it’s no surprise that 1 in 10 hires come from social media. If your company hasn’t yet, build your online presence by leveraging professional networking sites, with LinkedIn as the most obvious choice.
Social media algorithms are constantly changing; it is now harder than ever to gain organic engagement. SEO is very important, as is keywords, hashtags, tone of voice, and graphics and videos.
With over 756 million users, this platform for professionals has become a way to amass discerning followers who turn to you for thought leadership and engaging content. An article on LinkedIn marketing by Later even encourages companies to experiment with more interactive content. This makes followers feel more invested, involved and heard. Live videos alone receive 24x more comments than in-feed videos, for example. Experts also suggest taking this as an opportunity to share your unique brand voice by showing a little personality in your posts. Feature employees and behind-the-scenes of your projects. This can be a way to showcase that you’re not just a corporation but an organisation with real people they can connect with. It adds authenticity.
You can also migrate these strategies to sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok. Although if you want a platform that’s built specifically for professional networking, LinkedIn is the better choice. Just as consumers now want to emotionally connect with a brand, so do candidates. Among the biggest advantages that recruitment marketing provides is an elevated employer brand reputation that clearly states your goals and values. This, incidentally, is one of the biggest employee considerations when accepting job offers.
The rise of TikTok to showcase company culture is now a large, popular part of the platform. Businesses are using TikTok to show themselves as down-to-earth and relatable – as a fantastic place to work. Not every strategy will work on every social media platform, as not every angle is relevant – what might work on Facebook or TikTok might not work on LinkedIn – but having a robust social media strategy is instrumental to targeting audiences.
Make Use of Automation to Stay Timely
Things can move at the speed of light online, and content can quickly get drowned out. Computer Weekly’s report on the UK revealed that Internet use has even increased by 78% in just one year. Predictably, manually keeping up with this demand is nearly impossible both in terms of content creation and posting. Thankfully, most online content platforms can support automated postings and pre-planned content scheduling. revealed that Internet use has even increased by 78% in just one year. Predictably, manually keeping up with this demand. Thankfully, most online content platforms can support automated postings and pre-planned content scheduling.
To illustrate, a newsletter can be penned ahead of time and then queued for mass sending to your subscribers at a later date. The same can be done for social media posts like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. This can even be further optimised with auto-publishing options available on some third-party software. Automating some of your content also frees up time for your team to create ad hoc posts whilst banking future content.
The biggest investment that a company can make is in its people and to support them to be more efficient and effective by ensuring they have the right tools. It’s time for more organisations look consider recruitment marketing as an essential part of their talent acquisition strategy.
