The “war for talent” is intense more than ever now with the increase in the number of businesses. The talent pool is in higher demand, and they get the option to pick the best company to work with. Sadly, it is not recruiters that are in the driver’s seat anymore. So, it is essential to inspire the candidates to choose you among the sea of employers. Simply put, you need to get into marketing to attract the top talent to your company.
In this candidate-driven job market, traditional job posts and employee referrals cannot help you with qualified candidates. It would help if you created multiple channels to drive inbound leads for recruiting. Yes, inbound leads.
Inbound marketing is lately gaining popularity in the recruitment industry too. If you are not aware of what inbound marketing in recruiting is and how to do it right, this article is for you.
What is inbound marketing in recruiting?
Inbound marketing in recruiting is a technique to attract and connect with active and passive job seekers and inspire them to pick you to be their next employer.
Two main reasons why you should do inbound marketing for recruiting top talent:
- About 70% of the global workforce is made of passive candidates who are not searching for a job. However, these candidates could convert into leads if they find a better opportunity.
- Candidates want to know the company before they apply for a job in it.
7 Best Inbound Marketing Strategies for Recruiters
1. Build a strong employer brand
There are plenty of businesses in every industry; people tend to remember only popular and memorable brands. So, it is clear that they turn towards your brand only if it is outstanding. Building a strong employer brand is a long-term strategy with long-term benefits. The few things it requires are innovative marketing (for brand awareness) and consistency (for consideration).
Firstly, if you are a not-so-popular brand, the very first thing you should do is increase your brand visibility. If you have a website and a blog in it, SEO should improve your visibility. If you are a well-known brand but struggle to recruit the best candidates, you might be lacking consistency.
Brand visibility helps you come across candidates often, and it creates trust among them. This trust drives them to consider you when they are looking for a job.
2. Improve your website
A study shows that over 60% of job seekers apply to a job if the employer actively manages its brand. So, now you know the importance of the employer brand. Employer brand is not just for visibility, but it plays a significant role in a candidate’s decision.
To attract candidates and to choose you, you need to have an appealing website. It should be optimized for mobiles, as today, most people use mobiles over computers. Next, you need to have amazing content on your website to engage them. Not to mention, a careers page is a must on your website (you can read our blog about why companies need a careers page and how to build one).
Ensure your website seems credible and engages visitors. Avoid annoying popups or CTAs and secure your site with HTTPS. Also, make sure your site has enough pages like “about us,” “mission,” “careers page,” etc., that describe your company’s values, culture, and who you are. The careers page helps you post employment opportunities. However, ensure you make the application process easier on the site.
3. Create content for your audience
This follows the above strategy- in the sea of similar businesses, content sets you apart and takes you ahead. Create content that’s useful and engaging for your audience to gain trust among them. Say, you can write a blog on choosing the best ATS for your company, or challenges recruiters face if you have good knowledge to share. However, the blogs need not be only about recruiting. Anything that helps your audiences and values their time do you good. Again, you need to maintain consistency, else people will forget you.
When you have a company blog, it is easy for you to enter into their email inbox through newsletters. Remember, only show up in their inboxes when you have something important to say. Nobody wants to wake up and check up emails only to see what they already knew or uninteresting.
Research about the useful topics and write it in your way to share the knowledge with them and maintain consistency. Creating meaningful content related to your industry will represent you as an industry leader. Everybody wants to work with a company that’s popular in the industry, right?
4. Focus on candidate experience
Research shows that out of 60% of candidates who had a negative experience during recruitment, 72% decided to share it with the public. This is why candidate experience plays a crucial in the recruitment landscape. To maintain a good reputation, you need to focus highly on candidate experience. Follow up before and after the interview, update them with the progress and status to make them feel good about your company.
Candidates would refer your company and share their positive experiences over social channels or in person when they are treated well.
5. Fuel your Social Recruiting Strategy
Social recruiting is the new age trend that’s working extremely great because over 80% of candidates use social media to search for a job. So, you need to fuel your social recruiting strategies. For this, you need to build a solid social media presence.
Build a unique employer brand on all social channels such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc. Share your employee stories, company culture, values, and business-related content. This inspires job seekers to apply for the job. When passive candidates view your posts, they will surely come to your careers page or reach out to someone in your staffing team when they are ready for the shift.
6. Take advantage of ATS
Most businesses do not get enough time or have enough resources or skills to find the right candidates. This is where ATS (Applicant Tracking System) comes to the rescue. You can rely on a popular ATS for sourcing candidates, resume search, parsing resumes, etc. time taking tasks done on your behalf. This way, you get time for shortlisting potential candidates and hire highly qualified candidates in lesser time.
7. Referrals are powerful
Last but least, have a referral program. These are often underrated. However, when you properly implement them, you can drive as many potential inbound leads without spending much money or time. You can announce bonuses for employees referring the potential candidates. Alternatively, you can double the bonus if someone refers women as part of your referral program.
Additionally, you can also develop internal talent for future positions, which is more cost-effective.
Final thoughts
There are pretty many ways to drive inbound leads for hiring the best candidates. Nevertheless, the catch here is that most recruiters are not aware of what works and what does not. Luckily, now you have these inbound strategies for recruiting, which are simple yet effective. When you try out all the above discusses strategies the right way, recruiting should be much easier.
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