Today’s candidates are not only looking for well-paying job opportunities, but an organizational culture that affords them life-work balance and other personal benefits.
In addition to investing in good recruiting software, recruiters need marketing savvy to get their message out to potential applicants. In fact, a recent survey found 34% of the Fortune 500 are devising marketing strategies to attract candidates.
Here are 5 of the best marketing tactics to increase the success rate of attracting candidates that are a right fit.
1. Search engine optimization (SEO)
The majority of job seekers use search engines like Bing and Google to research their options. That’s why SEO should play a critical role in any business sourcing and recruitment strategy.
By using specific keywords and key phrases, recruiters can make their careers website visible to the potential applicants. A SEO–optimized career page or job posting increases your visibility when a potential candidate performs searches related to your role especially with the introduction of Google Jobs.
For example, if someone wants to know if you’re hiring for developers, they’ll likely search something along the lines of: Company X software engineering jobs in [location].
2. Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns
Apart from SEO, you can also increase visibility in search engine results by running a PPC campaign. Pay-per-click advertising allows recruiters to place ads targeting specific keywords in search engine results.
When the job seeker hits the link and visits your career page, you pay the bid amount. Otherwise, you’re not obligated to pay anything. Running PPC campaign is a very effective way to get as many applicants as possible.
3. Targeted messages
Both PPC and SEO campaigns are designed to send potential applicants to careers page on your website. Your career page needs to provide compelling information about your company, the available job opportunities, organizational culture, values and any other relevant descriptions.
Your messaging should pique the interest of your potential applicants. Geoffrey James, writing in Inc.com recommends creating a “personal message to that ideal [candidate] …rather than writing a dull-as-dishwater job description.”
So instead of writing a laundry list of the role’s requirements, you can narrow down to specific benefits that your employee(s) to be will enjoy in their new workplace. This requires a good understanding of the personality of your ideal candidate.
For example, you might want to highlight the ways your company makes mentoring opportunities available and supports work-life balance.
4. Social media marketing
Thanks to the proliferation of mobile devices, social media is become a valuable marketing tool. In fact, about 95% of recruiters are using social media platforms in search for the top talent.
LinkedIn is the classic social media network designed to connect professionals and job seekers with recruiters. The recent introduction of Facebook Jobs is also proving to be an interesting job search tool in addition to Twitter, Instagram, and Youtube.
5. Posting on job boards
Job boards, especially niche ones, are still going strong. As a recruiter, simply uploading your job posting and having it posted to several boards with one click is a huge time saver.
Another advantage of job boards is the option of sponsoring your job posting and getting it in front of more potential applicants. The applications get directly uploaded into your ATS or other recruiting software tool to automatically screen resumes and find you the best candidates, fast.
Nilam Oswal is a Software Analyst at SoftwareSuggest and she is fond of gadgets! When she’s not hard at work, she can be found wandering, reading and just generally having a good time in life. She blogs about lead management, marketing, BI tools and latest software updates.