Recruitment: A Crucial Piece of Your Overall Marketing Strategy

Lockdown lasted a long while here in Oz and finding myself stuck inside the house with so much time on my hands was certainly challenging. Besides listening to a ton of books on Audible to engage my mind and spending some well-needed quality time with the pooch, I found a few new interests.

One of these developing interests was marketing; specifically the part it plays alongside recruitment in the overall outward image of businesses. Should marketing be a part of your recruitment strategy, or should recruitment be a part of your marketing strategy?

Or both?

This all culminated in me actually undertaking a marketing course for recruitment leaders, through the guys at Hoxo Media (Sean Anderson) which was eye-opening to say the least. As someone looking to grow my own business, as well as consulting with clients as to how to grow theirs, I found some key takeaways which I thought would be helpful to put down in writing – for whether you’re a recruitment company, tech start-up, large corporate or otherwise.

How you attract and moreover engage talent should form a large part of your marketing strategy.

When it comes to hiring, we’ve moved far away from the typical model of posting a job online and waiting for applications to come flying in. Yes, that still happens, but an outdated approach to recruitment could speak of an outdated approach… Period.

The industry’s top talent – whatever your industry maybe – isn’t doing things the old school way, and they won’t want to work for a business who are. They’ve gotten to the top of their game by innovating; by bringing new ideas to the table. So, thinking seriously about how you go about trying to attract these very people couldn’t be more important – including considering every piece of collateral you put out there, from your job ads to LinkedIn posts, social feed and more.

It’s as much about the process as it is the initial engagement.

You could have the best-written job adverts in the world – but follow up with a shoddy candidate management process and you’re going to lose all of that initial buy-in. The way you follow up with candidates, respond to their enquiries, and generally communicate with them – in terms of frequency, speed and manner – should be an extension of how you do business as an organisation. Are you consistently reliable? Professional? Friendly? Transparent? Does HR have the time to commit to making sure every candidate, whether successful or not, gets the absolute best from each communication?

Having excellent talent engagement strategies in the form of job ads and outreach means nothing if the follow up is poor, much like conducting a fantastic lead generation campaign with no funnel or process to convert.

Could your recruitment process be diluting your brand?

As a business leader, everyone we speak to forms at least a small part of our marketing strategy – clients, suppliers, even family and friends. By using multiple agencies and partnering with the masses to undertake your recruitment campaigns, you lose a certain amount of control about what they might be saying, to whom, and how.

Is each agency portraying your values accurately? Do they embody your brand in every communication they have, with each candidate they’re working with? Do they represent your business well in everything they do?

All of the above is why it’s key to partner with only a small number of select agencies – those who take the time to build a relationship and understand who you are, how your business operates and what’s important. After all, it’s your name they’ll be saying – make sure you trust that they’ll do justice by your brand.

Employee engagement is a fundamental tool in talent attraction moving forwards.

Just like the suppliers you use to recruit, each and every employee plays a part in your marketing strategy as well – or they certainly should be doing. What do they tell their friends, their network, about what it’s like to work for you? For years now the employee referral trend has been building; if it’s not something your organisation has experienced much of yet, it’s time to wonder why.

Treat your employees well, engage with them and earn their loyalty, and watch as they become your biggest advocates – not to mention an amazing source of fresh talent.

More than ever, it’s important for businesses to have their marketing, HR teams and people at large working closely to establish the messaging you want to go to market with. And it’s our awareness of all this which makes our clients so happy to use us continually, often as a sole agency, when it comes to filling roles.

Here at Certus we do more than just your bog-standard recruitment. Talk to us today about how to transform your talent acquisition marketing strategy and recruitment process ready for the new year.