When it comes to recruitment marketing and promoting yourself as an employer of choice, there’s no combination quite like employer branding and digital attraction; they’re a recruiter’s dream team. Without a digital attraction or recruitment marketing campaign, your employer brand will never really be seen, and only very a small number of people will know what a fantastic employer you are. Similarly, if you try and reach large audiences without trying to create a true idea of who you are, your campaign will fall flat. Candidates won’t be interested because they don’t know you and can’t find out any information about what it’s like to work for you.
In the world of social media, there is no excuse for employers – especially those with ambitious hiring plans – to ignore the important role employer branding and digital attraction play in your hiring efforts. Although hiring is not something many businesses are fortunate enough to be thinking about right now, if you begin to consider your options now, you’ll be ready to launch a robust recruitment strategy as soon as budgets allow. Putting in the groundwork to attract talent now could help you reduce recruitment costs and see a better quality of hire in the future.
As it happens, the dynamic duo of recruitment marketing could be the solution to helping you attract talent in such uncertain times. The world’s eyes and ears are on the state of recruitment and unemployment is at a record high. Therefore, finding low cost and intelligent ways to promote your business and why candidates should consider you as a viable career option could set you one step ahead of the competition. Using social media and online campaigns to connect with people while they’re spending more time online (as we’re working from home, furloughed and can’t leave the house as often) could be an ingenious way of placing yourself further up the recruitment ladder; giving you the leverage to compete with big players even if you’re a startup business attempting to scale.
Still not convinced that working on your employer brand and implementing a digital attraction strategy is right for you? Here are some reasons why you should be considering upping your recruitment marketing game.
Building Anticipation
The beauty of employer branding and digital attraction strategies is that they don’t necessarily have to link to a specific vacancy. By promoting your differences and what makes you great, you can create a pool of talent. Imagine having a network of people who wish to work for you when a role becomes available. You can create a community feel and remain in constant contact with them, building anticipation for when positions eventually become available and forming relationships with candidates. Hence, they’re more likely to accept your offer. This keep-warm strategy can help build up awareness of who you are as an employer and allow you to showcase your values which will appeal to similar candidates, improving your retention rates.
Amplifying Your Voice
You may be a great employer already; one that genuinely has employees’ best interests at heart. In which case, using social media and digital attraction can help you reach new audiences and expand your search for talent. Think about the millions of people that spend time online; LinkedIn now has over 660+ million members worldwide, Facebook reported over 2.6 billion monthly active users in the first quarter of 2020, and Google receives over 63,000 searches per second every single day. That’s a huge audience. Now we’re not suggesting you show off your employer brand to 2.6 billion people, because many would be irrelevant. What we are saying though, is that if many people are using online platforms, think how many talented potential candidates you could be missing out on without using these channels.
Use social media, google and digital targeting options to spread the word about you, your values and company culture to vast audiences that are relevant and could potentially work for you. Particularly now remote working is likely to become an expectation for candidates and employees as we’re no longer limited by geography.
There’s no point in being a great employer if you don’t make it known, and spreading the message online couldn’t be easier. Posting organically won’t cost you anything, although the only way to reach vast audiences quickly is through paid media.
Authentic Content
When building your employer brand, you can create content that is true to yourself as an employer; encompassing how you want to be portrayed but also how your existing employees see you. By promoting online, there are so many ways for your content to be seen, from stories features to direct messages. Digital attraction is a way to showcase who you are and be creative. It’s not like a standard job advert that needs to conform to a layout; this can be uniquely you. By conducting thorough research when building or refining your EVP, you’ll have an accurate perception of what you’re like as an employer and can use this to create the fundamentals of your campaign. You can also create content and messaging which is unique to a specific part of your business; tech talent may not respond to the same messaging as sales teams for example. Segmenting your employer brand will help you connect with different groups whilst remaining authentic.
Are you innovative? Show it! Do your employees like your flexible ways of working? Shout about it! Employee reviews are excellent, but video testimonials and real-life stories will add an extra dimension of authenticity to your employer brand that traditional recruitment methods won’t generate.
An Opportunity to Show the New You
We’ve all learnt a lot in this pandemic; attitudes are growing more towards empathy and compassion as we had to learn to take care of each other. Employers are no exception. Businesses have had to make some tough decisions, adjust to new ways of working and in some cases, re-assess their entire business model. As we prepare to enter a post-pandemic world, there’s never been a better time to showcase who you are. Employers know that what candidates value in an employer has changed dramatically and they need to consider this in their offering if they wish to compete for top talent. This doesn’t mean an entire rebrand but re-considering core aspects of your EVP and emphasising your employer brand will help audiences see what you’ve learnt, how you’ve changed, and your intentions going forward. Empathetic leadership, a focus on mental wellbeing, creating greater flexibility for employees and prioritising diversity and inclusion are all things employees will value going forward.
For many, 2020 has been a year of personal growth, if employers don’t recognise a change in attitudes and showcase their response, candidates may perceive them as old fashioned and stuck in their pre-pandemic ways.
Lower Recruitment Costs
As much as we hate to admit it, it’s clear that in the next few months, recruitment budgets will be significantly tighter. As businesses deal with the looming threat of a recession and recruitment falls to the bottom of the priority list, leaders are less likely to splash the cash on a complete candidate experience overhaul. By investing in your employer brand and promoting it using social media and other digital attraction methods like paid media, you can reduce future recruitment costs. This is because candidates will know who you are, what you stand for and why they should work for you; meaning they’ll be the ones coming to you. If you promote yourself well and using smart tactics, you’ll no longer have to face recruiter fees and large advertising budgets for a single vacancy. Candidates will long to work for you and will find and apply for your jobs.
Plus, digital advertising is incredibly cost-effective. Facebook’s average cost per click for the recruitment industry is $2.72, but through intelligent targeting, you can ensure that your advert is only seen by relevant and qualified people. LinkedIn is very similar with a cost per click starting from $2 but detailed targeting options available including job seniority, industry and company size. Job boards such as indeed can set daily budgets as low as $0.10 per day but their ads can be seen by anyone who searches for a relevant keyword, it doesn’t rely on first-party data like LinkedIn or even interests like Facebook. It is because of the detailed targeting that makes digital attraction strategies more effective than traditional recruitment; you ensure none of your budget is wasted and can remain hopeful for a better quality of applicant.
At Talent Works, we’re experts in crafting consistent employer brands that reach and resonate with the right people in a range of industries through intelligent digital attraction campaigns. We also have experience of segmenting employer brand messaging to appeal to specific roles or segments of a business; including building employer brands for tech talent. If you’d like some guidance about how to rebuild or refine your employer brand as well as making sure it’s seen in the right digital spaces, please get in touch with our team of recruitment and marketing experts. Our goal is to help businesses stand out from the crowd and attract talent that will help them succeed in changing times.
