When you’re a tech business, it’s easy to think that the calibre of your technology you can offer candidates will make them want to work for you. If you’re working with the latest developments in robotics, AI or computer science to name but a few, it’s easy to expect that you’ll be an exciting prospect for tech candidates. Your business will present an opportunity to learn, the chance to become an expert in an emerging technology and above all, a challenge. All of which are things that should attract technology professionals.
However, technology will only get you so far. You could be working with the most cutting-edge technology out there, but if no one knows about your business or what you’re trying to achieve, you don’t stand a chance of attracting tech talent.
As we’ve said countless times, the market for highly skilled technology candidates is the most competitive it’s ever been. Candidates with the most sought-after skills, whether they’re data science experts, C++ engineers or even digital marketing professionals, are likely to be approached multiple times a day by recruiters and bombarded with targeted adverts. They’re in demand. Tech businesses are soaring in popularity and almost every other business is realising that they need digital and technical skills to be able to thrive in a changing consumer market. Therefore, in order to attract them, the prospect of working with the latest, cutting-edge technology won’t be enough. You need to raise your employer brand awareness, stand out from your closest competitors and simultaneously appeal to their emotional motivations for working.
So, what’s the solution?
You need Recruitment marketing.
Recruitment marketing is different to your consumer marketing in that instead of trying to sell your product, app or service, you’re trying to sell your workplace. This means your target audience will be different and much more specific depending on the role you’re recruiting for. In a tech business, the messaging that appeals to consumers will be incredibly different to the content which will appeal to top tech talent; they have different priorities.
Refine your employer brand
Your recruitment marketing starts with your employer branding. How do you want to be seen as an employer and how can you portray this using social media, digital content and throughout your organisation? It’s a big question and it means looking into the roots of your business down to your employee value proposition and what your employees think about you, but it’s vital to get right. You can’t promote an employer brand that isn’t an authentic representation of your true self, or you’ll risk high turnover rates and even bad reviews. Conversations with teams and a real deep dive into your mission and culture are vital. After all, all recruitment efforts begin with your employer brand, and marketing messaging is no exception.
Create emotionally engaging messaging
Tech candidates want to know specific messages, this is where you can show off your tech stack and brag about being state of the art. However, you need to think of the other aspects that are important to them in their work life. Do you offer flexibility? Do you give opportunities for progression? What are your policies around maternity and paternity leave? Contrary to what may be popular belief, tech candidates care about more than just the software they’re using. Make sure you think about this and pick out emotional drivers for them. You can talk to your team about why they chose to work for you, or even survey candidates.
Consider your platforms
When you’ve perfected your messaging, the next step is to think about where your audience are and how this messaging can translate to different platforms. For the best tech recruitment results in such a competitive talent market, it’s vital that your employer brand is present on multiple platforms. Using a mixture of digital platforms will help you to attract both active and passive candidates as well as expand your talent pool. This means having adverts on social media, using both consumer-focused like Facebook and professional like LinkedIn, being present on Google search and display as well as using complementary networks popular in the tech community. With unlimited budget it would be great to appear on all platforms, but this isn’t always doable. Instead consider your target candidates and where they would be spending time both if they’re currently looking for a job and if they aren’t actively searching. You can even tap into other marketing sources like radio, Spotify and billboards if you think they’ll be more effective than digital marketing platforms.
Get creative
Next it’s time to think about your creative. In the world of digital marketing, but in advertising in general, we’re bombarded with so many advertisements we’re almost becoming immune to them. So, how can you ensure that yours and your perfectly tailored messaging is noticed?
With the right creative your recruitment marketing efforts will be eye-catching enough to make candidates stop, then your messaging and employer brand can do the rest of the work. You’ll be able to connect with likeminded candidates on an emotional level, and it’s another way of showcasing your employer brand personality.
Videos and animation are always a good idea. On LinkedIn, Videos can get 5 times more engagement than other forms of content, while live videos can get you 24 times more. Similarly, on Facebook, mobile-first video increases brand awareness by up to 67%. Think about how to incorporate real life stories into your recruitment marketing, and remember using your people will always be more effective than stock images and lifeless photos of spaces. Candidates will stalk your business online, it’s how we learn about a business today. So, your social media feeds need to be able to help people envision life at your company. For this reason, many business choose to have dedicated careers accounts to ensure recruitment messaging and consumer messaging don’t get confused.
Run paid media campaigns
As well as your organic social media, paid digital attraction campaigns can help you to get in front of the right audience. With detailed targeting capabilities, you can ensure that your ads are being seen by relevant, qualified people rather than being seen by the entire population of a city. While location may not be such a barrier to work anymore, skills and qualifications will always be relevant in tech. Luckily, platforms like LinkedIn will allow you to target these people specifically. This means you can raise your brand awareness against a relevant talent pool, making sure your tailored tech messaging is not falling flat in the eyes of the wrong audience.
If you’re a tech scaleup looking to reach pool of relevant candidates beyond your own network, an RPO provider like us could help. We specialise in outsourced recruitment for tech scaleups with a unique, flexible model which means our resource can be scaled up or down to meet demand. Our in-house creative, digital and insight teams make intelligent recruitment marketing and employer brand awareness campaigns easy, targeting candidates where they spend their time.
To discuss how we can help you with talent marketing, contact our team to start a conversation.
