We spoke with Todd Raphael, who manages content and conferences at ERE Media, in touch with talent-acquisition leaders and others in the field every day, who shared the common recruitment marketing mistakes organisations make and strategies to fix them.
In today’s increasingly candidate-driven market, recruitment marketing has emerged as an important strategy for organisational success.
“If you look back decades ago,” said Raphael, “there was hardly anyone doing recruitment marketing or advertising. The military was the main one doing commercials and videos and games. At one of our conferences, someone spoke about recruiting with video games and people thought that was crazy! Now everyone’s doing it. It’s amazing how much recruitment marketing and advertising have grown.”
Now, most large and some smaller organisations engage in recruitment marketing.
“Ernest Packaging is an interesting example. It’s a smaller company of a few hundred employees. When you visit its website, the message is ‘not hiring sheep’. This type of recruitment marketing was typically something a large company would put together. Now smaller companies are doing it too.”
Use employee-driven content
Creating content that is too heavily curated not only consumes time and resources, it can also be off-putting to candidates through its inauthenticity.
“More companies are using their own employees in advertisements, instead of stock images. It’s more authentic. They feature real people talking about what it’s like working there.”
Employee-generated content (for example, BetterCloud’s employee-run Instagram) is a simple solution. Some organisations enable employees to answer questions from candidates and create video content. Raphael spoke of companies like Amtrak that publish videos created by their current employees talking about their roles and what it is like to work in the organisation.
“Dell launched something similar with current employees creating videos about what it’s like working there and what makes their company unique.”
Host events
More and more organisations are leveraging events in their recruitment marketing strategy.
“There seems to be more companies holding events, offering lunch and hosting speakers. They’re doing things to attract people, encouraging them to get to know their company and communicating that it’s a cool place to work.”
Hosting events is such a great way to connect with potential candidates and promote your employer brand in today’s tight labour market.
Don’t target young people only
Of the things that can go wrong in recruitment marketing, one is that many organisations try to attract people through their photos and the language in their advertisements, but end up turning many high-potential candidates off. These people could make valuable additions to your organisation.
“A lot of recruitment marketing is focused on young people – how fun it is, quarterly sales retreats, lifestyle, events after work, stuff like that. A lot of people who are not young (dual income working parents, those with aging parents) can’t work a traditional schedule. So that kind of advertising turns people off. Those people could be great potential employees.”
Think carefully about your choice of photos and the language in your job advertisements, as you may be shrinking your talent pool unnecessarily.
Adjust your attitude to flexibility
More and more organisations are offering flexibility to attract talent. Is this “perk” a good recruitment marketing strategy? According to Raphael, yes and no.
“You can have flexibility or work from home and have an inflexible lifestyle. You could be unappreciated, overworked, or have a mean boss.
Ultimately, the attitude that doing great work any time anywhere is more important than when and where – that’s attractive.”
Don’t neglect your job advertisements
It’s disappointing to see organisations with fancy career sites, but job advertisements and descriptions that miss the mark.
“It’s a downer, it’s boring! It’s as if they spent all this effort on marketing and social media but not the job advertisements.”
He loves HireVue’s job postings, like this one telling people not to dress up, prepare for brain teasers, or waste time updating their resumes.
Make your job advertisements more interesting with content from current employees, hiring managers, and the actual managers potential candidates could work with in the role. It’s great for potential candidates to be able to learn about the manager or people they’ll work with.
Raphael also suggests being more specific in job advertisements.
“Organisations usually state there are opportunities for advancement, telecommuting, or learning new skills. However, it doesn’t help potential candidates understand what that means, if it’s true, or how that is different to other organisations. You need to be specific.”
For example, Alex Fraser offers a management program, and Motorama provides opportunities for corporate philanthropy and wellness. Using specific examples in your job advertisements will develop candidates’ understanding and interest in your organisation.
Differentiate yourself from your competitor
Why should candidates apply to work with you instead of a talent competitor? It’s so important to determine your unique offering as an employer.
Ask the following key questions to distinguish your employer brand from your competitors. Do you have a compelling message? What’s the reason people should work for you and not somewhere else?
Raphael published an article about a popular hotel chain launching a new brand.
“As soon as I published the post, I got a letter from their competitor saying, ‘they stole it all from us!’ It struck me that it was impossible to know who stole from who! Both messages were fine, many companies have general messaging. But when you launch a recruitment marketing campaign, you need to figure out what makes your company special, and how you are different from your competitors.”
Communicate your unique messaging in your recruitment advertising and social media. (You don’t need to spend a lot of money on social media!) Use employee-generated content as mentioned previously, and be authentic.
Use real people on your careers site
Your careers site should feature real people speaking about their roles (in videos and staff profile stories), the type of people in your organisation candidates can expect to work with, and people in the same role candidates are applying for.
“If you’re applying for an assistant manager role, candidates want to watch a video about that particular role. Candidates want to know what it’s like to work there, and not just be sold – not that a careers video is a bad thing! They just want specifics from people who work there.”
Have you considered allowing potential candidates to ask current employees questions through automated or non-automated chat?
“Some companies, such as Hubspot, have built-in a Slack channel for potential candidates to ask questions. They can ask, ‘do you hire people you do ____?’ Or, ‘I live in ____, do you have any roles in this area?’ It can be very useful to a candidate.”
Don’t overdo your Glassdoor profile
People are generally good at assessing authenticity. This is particularly true when it comes to an organisation’s Glassdoor profile.
“Some companies are doing such a good job that they’re doing a bad job! You can tell when a company has done an outreach and asked people to publish a good review. It’s like Yelp; you can see companies that look kind of fake. One of the best things you can do to have a good Glassdoor presence is having a good workplace and work life, and offering people careers. The difference between branding and Glassdoor is that one is a result of the other – what people say on Glassdoor is a reflection of your reputation, your workplace, your culture.”
Recruitment marketing is highly effective when done correctly. Addressing these aspects of your overall strategy will help you stay ahead of your talent competitors. Focusing on communicating an authentic message and creating a great candidate experience makes it possible for your organisation to differentiate itself from competitors.
Have you used any of the above strategies? Tell us in the comments.