Recruitment marketing: 3 best practices

What is recruitment marketing?

Recruitment marketing is the use of marketing techniques to convince talent to choose your company.

So it's really just marketing, but aimed at attracting the right candidates rather than new clients. And for that, you can use a variety of strategies:

• SEO to make your jobs findable
• content marketing
• ads on social media
• email campaigns

What does it deliver?

Recruitment marketing allows you to continuously and systematically build a strong employer brand. This approach is much more effective than recruiting only when you need someone.

• Specifically, with recruitment marketing you will ensure:
• more applications
• better matches
• Filling vacancies faster
• Lower recruitment costs (no more need for expensive agencies!).

3 best practices in recruitment marketing

With these tips, your recruitment marketing will be a success:

1. Work on your employer branding

Employer branding is the process of building and promoting your reputation as an employer. The goal is to create an attractive brand that draws people in, retains them, and motivates them.

So think about what makes your company a great place to work. Why should people apply to your organization and not the competition? You need to have that crystal clear for your marketing and communications.

The most important thing here is: show, don't tell. Show what your company is like.

For example, use photos, videos and testimonials from current employees to make the work atmosphere and company culture tangible.

Real stories from real people often work better than those slightly-too-funny job postings and ads. So regularly post real stories from your employees about their projects and successes. Or make a "A day in the life video"!

Tip: Work atmosphere and culture are important for employer branding, but you can also talk about your company's growth opportunities, work-life balance or community involvement.

2. Use the right channels

Potential candidates are in multiple places.

And that's where you need to be with your content and job postings.

So be sure to look for the channels your ideal employees use. Think of LinkedIn, Instagram, or TikTok. But you can also use open houses, guest lectures, and networking events to connect with new talent.

Oh, and don’t forget the job boards. Job seekers still use Google to find the right job. See also Google for Jobs: Extra Visibility for Job Postings.

Tip: Build a talent pool and keep them regularly informed of new job openings and other relevant content that caters to their professional interests and ambitions with an email campaign. This will keep you top of mind as an employer.

3. Create a smooth candidate experience

The candidate experience is, say, the user experience, but in the application process.

Which you want to optimize and keep as smooth as possible. After all, that often makes the difference between dropping out or applying.

And this is how you ensure a great candidate experience in the first place:

• User-friendly website: Make sure your job posting or work-at-home page is easy to find, loads quickly and is logically structured. Also make sure candidates can easily apply with their mobile phones.
  
• Simple application process: Don't make the application process unnecessarily complicated. Sending a resume with a short motivation is often enough to invite someone initially. So ask only what is necessary.
  
• Quick communication: Don't make candidates wait weeks for a message. Acknowledge receipt of the application immediately and keep them informed of progress.

Also give feedback in case of rejection. This is often appreciated (and thus good for your image).

Pro-tip: target latent candidates too!

Latent candidates are people who just have a job and may be quite open to a new challenge, but are not really actively looking.

Most of the job market consists of these people, so chances are good that the ideal candidate is among them.

Only one problem: latent candidates don't scroll through your vacancies. The trick is to introduce them to your company or organization. To make them curious and plant a seed.

Because maybe they won't apply today, but they will in 3 months and at least you won't have to start from scratch.

A good way to stay visible to these candidates is with a retargeting campaign if they’ve already seen your previous content (i.e., those blogs and videos featuring real stories from your employees).

Want to get started with recruitment marketing?

But do you still have questions, or are you unsure where to start? Feel free to contact us. We’d be happy to help.