How To Use Marketing Principles To Attract Best In Class Talent For Your Open Roles
Marketing and your brand communications are a vital part of telling the story of your product or service and who you are. Job applicants and potential candidates are increasingly interconnected, digital, and emotionally bound to brands and companies, which means your marketing channels are first and foremost a place people visit to feel a sense of trusted service and connection.
Brands and decision-makers need to understand that your recruitment marketing is only as good as your brand control, communications, and customer brand advocacy.
Employer branding makes effective recruitment marketing. The way you brand your company as a place to work as well as a service or product to engage with or buy sets the tone for how effective your recruitment marketing channels really are.
It’s also important to know that the vast majority of working people are passive job seekers - professionals who have one eye on the job market but who are not actively interviewing or job hunting - and that pool of talent is where the effective latent work of marketing and employer branding makes itself most keenly felt.
And, most importantly, your potential applicant is passive or actively seeking employment post-pandemic. More often than not they’ve been connected to you, or watching your company over the last 18 months and will have a solid understanding of your market placement and business pre-, during- and post-pandemic.
Your marketing efforts have been a window into your company, so taking advantage of its unique storytelling attributes is vital in securing the best in class talent.
Here are some marketing tricks and tips to attract the right talent for your open job role:
Employer Branding Strategy
Do not waste the opportunity to bring the key brand and senior executives into a room to hash out a specific employment brand book.
Ask yourselves questions such as why your company adds value in a certain aspect, then apply a marketing filter over it: how do your marketing channels augment or improve that value? Does marketing communicate it clearly? Are you using every marketing channel to the greatest effect?
If you’ve clearly defined your channels of communications and how each channel works to improve your overall brand and recruitment options, you’re on the way to creating a better employer branding environment.
Leverage Video
Suppose the pandemic has taught recruiters and HR teams anything. In that case, it’s that the true power of digital storytelling has barely been taken advantage of, and that your potential hires are digitally engaged on multiple platforms and expect better, more diverse branded content.
Using video to improve your employer branding is not only a great content tool in general, but creates a wider variety of content to market to potential employees on a wider platform base. Companies such as Uncubed have an entire studio dedicated to telling branded recruitment stories, and platforms such as Instagram are expanding their use of more long and short-form video content to engage users.
Understand Your Employment Shortfalls
Hiring a CMT (Chief Marketing Technologist) to better understand your data analytics from your marketing platforms is the most effective way to monitor if your marketing is even effective. Use MarTech and professionals in the space to pull together appropriate data channels to understand better (and isolate) how you attract talent to your company.
Suppose your UK arm has incredible feedback and engagement on Glassdoor and via Social Media, but your MEA market leans on Recruiters. In that case, your CMT needs to pull these disparate channels into one data flow to nail down your recruitment channels.
Your Network
Use your network. Your recruiter and advocacy networks are the most trusted channel for telling potential workers about how great you are as an employer, and they are one part of your marketing matrix. Use their personal connection, engage with them, and market to them directly.
