It’s Time to Partner With Marketing

May 25, 2022

To win the war for talent, recruiters need to recognize that the talent acquisition process starts long before a prospective candidate lands on their job listing.

They need to think like seasoned marketers—and that means tapping into marketing initiatives to attract, engage, and convert qualified candidates.

Think about it: With so many organizations competing for the same candidates, you need a comprehensive recruitment strategy to stay alive. Your recruitment efforts should touch every aspect of your outreach, from your careers page to your social recruitment. That’s where marketing can be your MVP.

It’s a big responsibility, but when done right, you’ll see a major payoff. Here’s how to partner with marketing to streamline your recruitment efforts with a knockout strategy.

 


 

Why Should Human Resources Partner With Marketing?

At its core, business growth is all about people. Your organization’s operations, strength, and resilience are all determined by the passion, commitment, and output of everyone, from your C-suite to your production workers. 

At the same time, your brand is shaped by the actions every team takes, from engineering to marketing, sales, and fulfillment.

That’s why your HR team needs to partner with marketing—and marketing needs to recognize the impact it has on talent acquisition.

With the right strategy, marketing can transform your recruitment efforts so you can fill your talent pipeline with top talent. Here’s how.

  • Marketing boosts your employer brand. Even before someone fills out an application, they’ll have a chance to evaluate your employer brand. You need to anticipate this—and that means acting ahead of time to tell your brand’s story and showcase your company culture. Marketing can help you differentiate yourself from the competition and convey your employer value proposition (EVP) right off the bat.
  • Standout content kickstarts a positive candidate experience. Content marketing creates a lasting impression, even before your dream candidate applies for the team. By sharing your employees’ stories, answering candidates’ questions, and cultivating relationships with prospects, marketing sets the tone for the rest of the candidate journey.
  • Marketing expedites the talent acquisition process. Sure, it’ll take some time to get your marketing strategy off the ground, but it’ll pay off quickly. Why? Because it’s essentially a candidate vetting process. If your initiatives don’t click with someone, or if potential candidates don’t fit in with your company culture, they’ll know not to apply. This way, you can fill your talent pool with top picks and spend less time weeding out less desirable candidates.

 


 

How to Streamline Your Recruitment Marketing Efforts

When most people think of marketing’s contribution to a company, it comes in the form of advertising, lead generation, and brand awareness, but marketing can play a far more valuable role in recruitment. When done right, a multichannel marketing strategy can serve as a strong catalyst for talent acquisition and retention.

Ready to transform your recruitment strategy? Here’s how to start driving real results with the power of recruitment marketing.

 

1. Tap Into Marketing Data to Build Candidate Personas

Depending on your industry, the same people you’re targeting as potential customers might be ideal job candidates. By sharing marketing campaign data with HR, talent acquisition teams can understand who to engage, where to find them, and what they’re likely to want out of a career change.

Think about it this way: Your marketing team probably already builds buyer personas to guide their marketing efforts. Just like marketing, you can build candidate personas that align with your company culture.

For example, truck drivers might be more active on Facebook and Twitter, while logistics managers might be best reached via LinkedIn. Meanwhile, if you’re hiring blue-collar workers with certain trade skills, those workers might be more receptive to communications sent via industry-specific forums. 

Thanks to marketing data, you already know their demographic information, pain points, and interests. Now, you just need to tweak your recruitment efforts to send the right message and pique their curiosity.

2. Leverage Existing Talent to Attract New Talent

The best way to tell your company’s story? Through your existing employees. Just like customer testimonials act as social proof in the marketing world, your employee stories show prospective candidates why your company is worth working for.

So, how can you use employee stories to power up your recruitment strategy? Start by interviewing your longest-tenured employees to find out what makes your organization so appealing to them. You might create short video interviews about their hiring process, personal challenges, career growth, and experiences with your company. Then, have marketing share their stories on social media or your careers page.

In addition, encourage existing employees to network at industry events, post company-focused content on social media, and refer colleagues to your open positions. They know your company culture best—and engaged employees will be happy to make helpful recommendations about people who could be a good fit.

When your existing employees talk about their relationship with your company, it’s exponentially more impactful than a decent review on Glassdoor. Give your employees opportunities to speak honestly to jobseekers about their experience by making them part of your content marketing strategy. Trust us—it’s well worth the time and effort.

3. Align Marketing Initiatives With Recruitment Goals

To succeed at recruitment marketing, you need to know what type of talent you want to attract down to their skills, interests, career goals, and core values. Then, you need to align your marketing, company culture, and professional development initiatives with your ideal candidate.

You need to offer amazing benefits, whether that’s in the form of financial incentives, flexible scheduling options, or upskilling programs, to maintain a competitive edge in an oversaturated recruitment landscape. Not only that, but you need to market those benefits to show prospective candidates how your company can add value to their lives.

On top of benefits, you should also take action to promote inclusion and diversity throughout your culture. Instead of trying to sell your culture as something it’s not, focus on the actions that lead your team members. Promote these actions within your marketing strategy to give prospects an honest glimpse into your culture.

Not sure how to market your culture? Start with recruitment events. They’re a great opportunity to give jobseekers a sneak peek of your company culture and the benefits you offer. The best part? They can be scaled up or down, with industry speakers or Q&A sessions, and you can keep the party going by posting information on social media pages and blogs.

4. Track Your Recruitment Marketing Results

Marketing should never be a guessing game. Before you implement any recruitment marketing strategy, you need to audit your current recruitment efforts and define measurable goals. Just like your marketing team measures their PPC success, you need reliable metrics to track your recruitment efforts.

When you build a powerful recruitment strategy, set smart goals, and consistently measure your results, you’ll be one step closer to winning the war for top talent. Plus, you’ll be able to retain qualified candidates and turn them into loyal advocates for your employer brand. Sounds like a win-win, right?

 


 

Attract Top Talent With Strategic Marketing

In a time where candidates are essentially consumers, marketing should be a non-negotiable part of your talent acquisition strategy. That’s right: Recruitment marketing isn’t just a fad. It’s here to stay, and it’s becoming a core HR function to attract and retain top talent.

What are you waiting for? It’s time to partner with marketing so you can start converting your ideal candidates into loyal employees.

Download our self-audit checklist and schedule a discovery call with our team to level up your recruitment strategy with powerful marketing tactics.

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