6 Recruitment Marketing Strategies to Attract Talent

In the last decade, recruiting top talent has changed a great deal. Gone are the days when businesses or hiring managers would run advertisements, hoping job seekers would apply. 

Technology has revolutionized recruitment. Now, HR professionals, talent acquisition managers, and recruitment teams can rely on artificial intelligence (AI), HR technology, and recruiting automation to develop recruitment strategies that let them attract and hire top talent faster and more efficiently. However, technology alone doesn’t cut it. You must think and act like a marketer to nurture and build meaningful relationships with candidates.

Marketers know how to influence and engage with their target audiences and convince them to take action, whether it is to subscribe to a YouTube channel or book a flight to a travel destination. To hire and retain top talent, you need to adopt a marketing mindset in your recruitment process.

Recruitment marketing can help you reach skilled candidates, build employer branding, provide a fantastic candidate experience, and reduce the time it takes to hire new team members. 

What is recruitment marketing?

Not to be confused with recruitment, recruitment marketing brings top talent to your company’s doorstep rather than proactively looking for prospective hires. 

At its core, recruitment marketing attracts and engages potential candidates. It involves proactive and reactive job sourcing by promoting your company’s brand using marketing methods throughout the recruitment life cycle. Recruitment marketing mixes traditional marketing principles with the unique needs of the hiring process. The idea is to craft compelling reasons for qualified candidates to seek you out rather than chase after them.

Recruitment marketing differs from the traditional approach, in which talent acquisition managers post job ads and hope qualified candidates will apply. It includes promoting your business and your company culture in addition to specific job openings. This recruitment strategy is about attracting the right candidates by putting your company in the spotlight.

Without recruitment marketing, your organization may have lower brand recognition and, consequently, fewer candidates to choose from.

Top recruitment marketing strategies

An effective recruitment marketing strategy cuts through the noise. Candidates notice your company, which can position you as their dream employer. It can help you build relationships with potential candidates even before you start actively sourcing for new hires. The more touch points you have with candidates, the easier it is to persuade them to apply when vacancies open up.

A robust recruitment marketing initiative makes sure you are ahead of the pack by:

• Boosting employee engagement and retention
• Reducing time-to-hire
• Improving candidate experience
• Building more diverse recruitment funnels

Strategy 1: Employer Branding

Your company’s brand and reputation are important factors in attracting qualified candidates. Job seekers will typically research your company before sending applications. They may reconsider applying for jobs if they hear stories that paint your company in a negative light. This is where employer branding comes in.

Employer branding shapes how potential applicants perceive your company. Multiple elements influence an applicant’s perception, from your social media presence to Glassdoor reviews. Employer branding communicates your company’s values and value propositions while differentiating your brand from other companies to attract future candidates. When potential candidates consider job offers from your company and a competitor, what is it about your company that checks their boxes?

If you are unsure about your firm’s employer branding, a brand audit can tell whether your branding and reputation are on point. Developing a solid employer brand strategy and a compelling employer value proposition should be a cross-team effort. You can achieve this by conducting internal surveys to understand what employees love about working for your company and by featuring positive experiences from current employees on the company website and social media accounts.

A great example of employer branding is how Starbucks refers to employees as partners and even goes the extra mile to congratulate employees on college graduations. They showcase their company culture while highlighting one of their employee benefits: 100% tuition coverage for a first-time bachelor’s degree.

Strategy 2: Content marketing for recruitment

Just as you must win over potential customers before they buy your products or services, sell potential employees on your company’s mission and core values before they consider joining your team. That’s why content marketing in recruitment goes beyond job postings. It can include blog posts or social media posts that show your company culture, informative articles about your industry, or testimonials from current employees. Newsletters, webinars, infographics, and podcasts are also great tools for building your brand and reaching potential applicants. 

Keep your company’s website active with a steady stream of posts and videos that tie into your brand’s story and values. By creating relevant and valuable content, you can attract people searching for information related to your industry or niche on search engines. 

An example of a company that excels in content marketing for recruitment is HubSpot, which uses blog posts and YouTube videos to offer insights into its company culture. They even have a diversity, inclusion, and belonging report that potential candidates can read before applying.

Strategy 3: Social media recruiting

Your potential candidates are likely on social media. With over 1 billion members globally and approximately 225 million in the U.S., LinkedIn is an obvious choice since it has a professional audience focused on career development. 

But other platforms, including Facebook, X, and Instagram, aren’t just for sharing memes or snapshots of your vacation or lunch. They’re also valuable tools for growing your brand’s visibility and attracting potential candidates.

Craft engaging social media campaigns that paint an appealing picture of your organization’s culture and values. You can show potential candidates what their day-to-day would look like if they were employees at your company. You can also create content highlighting employee experience and what they love about their jobs.

Remember to include unique selling points that your company has to offer. Do you have outstanding medical benefits? A daycare, perhaps? A cafeteria? How diverse is your workforce? With a strong social media presence, you can attract and convince employed candidates to check out what you offer.

GoodTime‘s LinkedIn successfully leverages social media for recruiting by featuring employee stories and industry insights while engaging with followers. We also post job openings and company events on our social media accounts.

Strategy 4: Employee advocacy programs

An employee advocacy program is an easy way to attract high-quality candidates. Let your employees act as brand ambassadors. They deeply understand your company’s mission, values, and culture. They’re also keenly aware of the type of person who would be a perfect fit for the job.

A well-structured employee referral program can lead to the recruitment of qualified candidates likely to be a good cultural fit. Since an employee would be putting their reputation on the line, they would conduct initial vetting before introducing a potential candidate. This could be someone they previously worked with, an acquaintance who seems like a good fit, or a friend from college.

You can incentivize your employees with rewards such as referral bonuses. Employee advocacy programs are cost-effective recruitment methods that require little effort on your end. To measure the success of your employee advocacy program, track key metrics such as the quality and quantity of referral applications and the engagement rate of content shared by employees.

Dell, one of the leading computer brands, lets employees find and share their own content, which has led to the enormous success of its employee advocacy program. This has increased Dell’s recruitment reach, driving potential candidates to their website and careers page.

Strategy 5: Recruitment events and webinars

Recruitment events such as career fairs, meet and greets, and online webinars offer valuable opportunities to connect with potential candidates. This recruitment marketing strategy embraces offline marketing tactics and applies them to recruitment.

Recruitment events and webinars help you build strong relations with potential candidates from the very beginning. You can also discover skills that are hard to convey on a resume, such as interpersonal skills. These interactions give candidates a taste of your company’s culture as they interact with team members.

For example, a startup tech company could host a virtual recruitment event, inviting potential candidates such as project managers and software engineers. This would give candidates a chance to learn more about the company. The company could also host a live Q&A session with team leads, significantly boosting brand reputation.

Strategy 6: Leveraging recruitment technology

Using data to fine-tune your recruitment process can involve analyzing the sources of hires, feedback regarding candidate experience, and time-to-fill metrics. AI tools and ATS integrations can help you make evidence-based hiring decisions that align with your recruitment marketing strategy. Recruitment technology can help you with resume screening and interview scheduling, allowing you to focus on building relationships with candidates and improving their experience.

GoodTime is a perfect example of a company that leverages recruitment technology. We automate 90% of interview management tasks through AI. This tech-driven approach helps our customers process more candidates, faster, ultimately leading to better hires.

Metrics to measure the success of recruitment marketing

Tracking and measuring recruitment success is integral to refining your hiring strategies and attracting top talent. Recruitment marketing key performance indicators (KPIs) can help you make data-driven decisions to optimize your recruitment campaigns.

Here are the metrics you should track to measure the success of your campaign:

• Applicant quality: This KPI measures the quality and relevance of applicants your recruitment marketing efforts attract. It focuses on whether your pipeline matches your target personas and diversity hiring goals and whether they have the right skills and experience for the job.
• Engagement rates: This metric identifies whether your recruitment marketing strategies and content resonate with your target audience on LinkedIn, Instagram, and niche platforms. The higher the engagement rate, the more appealing and relevant your content is to potential new hires, meaning you are drawing attention to your company and job vacancies.
• Time-to-hire: This metric measures the time it takes from a job posting to offer acceptance, indicating the effectiveness of your recruitment marketing strategies. If your strategy is robust, you will likely notice an influx in applications, speeding up the recruitment process.
• Cost-per-hire: Recruiting new employees is expensive, with the average cost being approximately $4,700. Cost-per-hire measures the overall cost of your recruitment marketing campaigns, including job board fees, advertising expenses, and recruitment agency fees. A lower cost per hire implies your brand’s recruitment marketing efforts are more efficient. This metric can guide recruitment budget allocation for future hiring campaigns.
• Source of hire: Where do candidates first learn about your job postings? Is it through social media, employee referrals, or job boards? This metric helps you identify the most effective recruitment channels to reach potential candidates.

By tracking these KPIs, you can gain valuable insights that guide your recruitment marketing efforts and inform your decisions to achieve your recruitment goals. They can also help you assess your current recruitment performance and whether you are on the right track in hiring top talent.

Strategic recruitment marketing for long-term success

Now, more than ever, companies should adopt effective recruitment marketing strategies to attract qualified candidates. Recruitment marketing is a strategic approach to drawing in, engaging, nurturing, and converting potential candidates. It can also enhance candidates’ experiences and bolster your brand’s image.

However, it’s important to note that recruitment marketing isn’t a one-size-fits-all model. It’s all about experimenting with different strategies, tracking your success, and refining your strategy accordingly. With a proactive approach, recruitment marketing can be a valuable instrument that leads to business growth and success.

Ultimately, recruitment isn’t just about filling vacant positions. It’s about hiring the best talent for the job. Lean on our experts to discover how GoodTime can help you automate your recruitment process and hire top talent.