You can’t simply hope that qualified candidates will stumble upon your recruiting business or job postings. You must find talent and entice them to become applicants. To do this, you need to use recruitment marketing.
What is recruitment marketing?
Recruitment marketing is the strategy you use to find, attract, and engage with talent to increase your candidate pool and send qualified applicants to your clients. Essentially, you will use marketing tactics to find candidates.
As a recruiter, you must find top talent before they apply for a position or even think about looking for a new job. Marketing can help you do this. You entice the candidates to work with you and apply for your client’s position. By marketing to talent before they decide to look for a new job, you can snatch the best talent before your competitors.
Recruitment marketing strategies
So, what recruitment marketing campaigns and tactics can you use to find candidates? Below are ways to market your job openings and your recruiting business.
SEO
SEO for recruiters helps people find your website and services. The higher your site shows up in search results, the more likely people are to click on your site. And, if you optimize the job postings on your job board by using keywords, your job postings are more likely to show up.
Here are some SEO tips:
- Keep the content on your website fresh. New job board postings will help with this. You might also consider starting a blog on your recruiting business’s site.
- Make your site mobile friendly. Not only can this boost your search result rankings, but it can also help candidates and clients view your site more easily.
- Do not duplicate content across your site or on other sites.
- Research relevant keywords that will help search engines learn what your site is about. Use the keywords throughout your site. But be careful; using the same keywords over and over on a web page can be seen as keyword stuffing. Keyword stuffing can hurt your site’s rankings.
Social media
With social media, you can find many qualified passive candidates. They have the skills you are looking for, but they haven’t necessarily thought about leaving their current job.
Social media recruiting offers many benefits for you. It’s free to use, a majority of the U.S. population uses social media, you can learn about job history and interests, and there are powerful search tools.
Don’t limit yourself to LinkedIn. Other social media sites—like Facebook, Twitter, and specialty sites—have potential candidates waiting to be found.
Be an active participant on social media. Post content and engage with people. Show people that you’re a real person, not a robot.
Referrals
Referrals are a great way to market your recruiting services. Ask your candidates to refer their peers.
Your candidates will hopefully share their good experiences working with you, so the recruiting referrals will be more likely to work with you as well. And, your candidates will have insider knowledge about people who are looking for jobs, meaning they will send you candidates who are more open to your help.
Once you have a referral, reach out to them. Tell the person how you found out about them and what help you can provide. Even if the referred person isn’t interested in an open position, try to get permission to add them to your recruiting CRM.
Branding
Your recruiting business’s brand should be part of your recruitment marketing plan. You want people to recognize your business and be excited to work with you. Your goal is to convince people that they should work with you instead of another recruiter or mass applying to companies.
Make sure your branding is consistent. Your website, social media accounts, and emails should all display your brand. People should be able to recognize your brand across multiple platforms.
Be friendly and approachable. Have an active presence—don’t become stale. People should know they can reach out to you and receive a quick response.
Job postings
Posting jobs on job boards is an easy way to find candidates who are interested in a specific job. Tons of big-name and specialty job boards exist. You’re sure to get applicants when you post on job boards, especially if you write a job description well.
You can also put job board integration on your business’s website. All the openings you are trying to fill will show up on your site. People can learn more about specific jobs, submit their resumes, and even sign up for job alerts.
Job board integration also improves your brand recognition. People will continually come to your website to check for jobs, especially when they have job alerts. They will become familiar with you and your brand. As they get to know you, they will become more comfortable working with you, and they might refer other people to you, too.
Metrics
Your recruitment marketing is only worthwhile if you have proof that it’s working. To find out what works, you need to track recruiting metrics.
Some things you might measure include:
- How many candidates come from each source
- How many responses you get from outreach attempts
- How many passive candidates become applicants
Once you have metrics and stats, you can create your recruitment marketing plan. The metrics will tell you what works, which is where you should spend more time and money.
