What is recruitment marketing and why it is important?

In today’s highly competitive market, attracting top talent has never been more important. It’s no secret that people are key to the success of an organisation. Creating a team of talented individuals with a range of experience, skill sets, and ideas is crucial for a business to thrive. It is also one of the biggest challenges facing employers.

The Great Resignation has seen UK job vacancies hit an all-time high. Amidst a shrinking talent pool, the Seenit Talent Revolution 2022 survey found that 47% of HR professionals struggle to find top talent. To have any chance of competing, brands must pay more attention to developing recruitment marketing strategies that prioritise thecandidate experience.

To successfully source, attract and hire the right talent for your business, you need a strong recruitment marketing strategy. Read on to learn more about recruitment marketing and why it’s important for your business. We’ve also thrown in some great tips too.

What is recruitment marketing?

Recruitment marketing describes the process before a candidate actively applies for a job. It uses specific marketing methods to take potential candidates from “never heard of the company”‘to “that sounds like an interesting organisation, but I’m not sure” to “I want to work there”.

Recruitment marketing is about engaging with prospective candidates early on in their job hunt before they’ve even started job hunting.

It’s the process of showcasing your employer brand across different channels to deliver the right message to the right candidates at the right time. Recruitment marketing is often confused withemployer branding. However, employer branding is the process of creating and maintaining a firm’s employer brand and your organisation’s reputation as an employer. Recruitment marketing is highlighting your employer brand to potential candidates.

Why is recruitment marketing important?

Today’s job seekers discover and consider prospective employers almost in the same way as a consumer would find products, restaurants, or hotels. By following social media, reading reviews, and searching online, candidates learn about an employer and available career opportunities.

What they learn about a company’s culture and values at this stage can greatly influence their decision to apply for a job and later accept an offer of employment. This has meant recruiters are now harnessing tactical marketing initiatives to attract, engage and eventually convert top talent.

Recruitment marketing creates every touchpoint a potential candidate encounters on their journey to becoming an employee, which makes it so important for thecandidate experience. Between80% and 90% of candidates may change their minds about an employer or a role based on whether they’ve had a positive or negative candidate experience.

Here are five benefits recruitment marketing can offer your business.

1. Developing your employer brand

Long before someone decides to apply for your job vacancy, they’ll be able to assess your employer brand. Shrewd recruitment marketers will have already anticipated this and taken steps to ensure the brand resonates with top talent.

2. Creating a positive candidate experience

Before your ideal candidate connects with your organisation, you must make a great first impression. A strategic recruitment marketing strategy combined with a strong employer brand will lay the foundations of a great candidate experience from the very beginning.

3. Filtering out unsuitable candidates

Recruitment marketing is like a candidate vetting process that helps filter out unsuitable applicants. If a person doesn’t connect with your culture, meet your expectations, or your recruitment marketing initiatives don’t click with them, they’ll know not to apply. There’s a pipeline of passive candidates swimming close to your talent pool. Before reeling them in, recruitment marketing enables you to select the talent you need without the time-consuming elimination of less desirable applicants later.

4. Broadening scope with a multichannel approach

With recruitment marketing, you aren’t simply waiting for people to come across your job vacancy. Recruitment marketers actively looking for top talent use a multichannel approach. This includes paid adverts, industry sites, third-party job boards, and social media. This active outreach means that companies can use their employer brand more widely to attract more diverse candidates.

5. Attracting higher-quality candidates

Just as marketers use customer personas to inform their content creation, recruiters can build applicant personas that align with the organisation’s staffing plan and company culture. When recruitment marketing efforts are more strategically targeted towards the company’s ideal candidates, you can select the candidates that better fit your candidate persona.

Top 5 recruitment marketing tips to follow

The candidate journey is complex, especially when there are so many channels people can use to research brands. The Great Resignation has also created a large pool of vacancies. Recruitment marketing helps your company stand out and have a strong presence wherever your ideal candidate may be. Here are our top five recruitment marketing tips to help you attract the best talent.

1. Content marketing and video

Have you consideredhow recruitment videos help boost job applications? Content marketing and video help ensure your brand stands out and can get the top talent looking in your direction. Usingstorytelling for recruitment marketing can take your recruitment efforts to the next level. Video not only puts a human face to your company but also tells your brand’s story in such a way that your audience is far more likely to remember it – up to30% more likely.

2. Leverage social media with organic and paid advertising

Most employer branding strategies include social media, and so too should recruitment marketing. However, not all social media platforms are appropriate for recruitment marketing. That’s why you must know where your target audience is spending their time online. You may find that when you post video job descriptions organically, LinkedIn may be an effective platform. But if you want to reach more Generation Z and millennial candidates, then Instagram Stories may deliver more results, and sponsoring IG stories may be the way to reach them.

3. Consistently network and follow up

Don’t just wait until you have a vacancy to fill. Recruitment marketing is all about networking to build up contacts and court potential candidates even if there isn’t a specific opening at that moment in time. It would help if you also were courting candidates through follow-up campaigns. The faster you follow up with them, the more likely you will win their attention and interest in your organisation.

4. Master your careers page

One of your most important resources in terms of recruitment marketing is your website. Your careers page is perfect for prospective candidates to have an initial experience of your company’s employer branding. You can also use it to promote marketing-based content that raises candidate awareness and interest. Don’t be afraid to invest in developing your careers page as it might just be the first proper contact a candidate has with your brand and where they learn about your company culture and values.

5.Welcome feedback and highlight reviews

While a candidate accepting a job offer is a good sign that they are satisfied with their candidate experience, it doesn’t tell you the full story. Encourage candidates – even those who didn’t become employees – to give their feedback to help you understand where you can improve recruitment marketing. You can also highlight reviews on your careers page to give prospective applicants an insight into the candidate experience and what they can expect.