Recruitment marketing may sound contradictory, but has been tossed around in HR websites for years. With pressure mounting to hire the right people faster, it’s become an essential skill for every person in the industry. The sad thing is that it’s mostly discussed in marketing rather than recruitment.
What is recruitment marketing?
It’s the practice of using marketing techniques to attract talent to work for you. Not only is it a talent acquisition strategy but also a growing career for remote professionals.
How is it different from traditional marketing?
While it does use modern marketing techniques, recruitment marketing is for finding quality candidates through email, mobile, social, and search rather than promoting your brand commercially.
| Traditional marketing | Recruitment marketing | |
| When | Generating leads | Attracting applicants |
| Why | Brand awareness | Employer brand |
| Who | Marketing team | HR team |
| How | Promotional activities | Recruitment activities |
How is it different from regular recruiting?
Despite the similar terminology, recruitment marketing is different from recruiting. A recruiter partners with hiring managers to hire qualified candidates. Meanwhile, a recruitment marketing professional also performs lead generation, reputation management, and brand awareness.
| Recruiting | Recruitment marketing | |
| When | Upon specified hiring need | Ongoing even if no open roles |
| Why | Filling a vacant position | Facilitating future hiring |
| Who | Recruiter, hiring manager, HR | Recruitment marketing specialist |
| How | Evaluating applicants individually | Targeting candidate personas |
How is it different from employer branding?
These two terms are related to each other but can’t be used interchangeably. Employer branding improves your company’s reputation as a place to work among existing and future employees. Recruitment marketing promotes the employer brand and encourages people to apply.
| Employer branding | Recruitment marketing | |
| When | After identifying employer identity | After defining employer brand |
| Why | Fixing and improving the workplace | Telling your story to future workers |
| Who | Employer, HR, marketing team | Recruitment marketing specialist |
| How | Reputation built by employees and candidates to their networks | Action plans for communicating the company story |
Why do you need recruitment marketing?
Acquiring the right talent for your company is harder than ever. It’s one thing to have high standards and prefer only quality candidates. It’s another matter when you can’t find anyone who is even qualified.
Human capital is in short supply these days. An extensive report by organisational consulting firm Korn Ferry reveals that by 2030, more than 85 million jobs might be unfilled due to the lack of skilled people to take them.
The solution isn’t to spam job boards with your listings. That’s a waste of your recruitment budget, as well as the time of your hiring managers and recruiters. What you need is a recruitment marketing strategy.
What is a recruitment marketing strategy?
The be all and end all of recruitment marketing is telling your culture story for promoting your workplace to potential employees. This involves leveraging media and content to convince people to apply.
Common media and methods used for recruitment marketing include:
- Videos
- Social media
- Interviews
- Blog posts
- Virtual events
For instance, you can share photos of your offices or current workers on your Facebook page or Instagram business account. Or create a section on your corporate website where your team talks about their day-to-day activities, and why they enjoy working at your company.
Why do you need a recruitment marketing specialist?
To lead your efforts, it’s wise to hire a specialist. They’re crucial in spreading the word about your open roles. Additionally, they know best as to who are qualified and interested in applying.
They’re equipped with skills in engagement and communication that are essential throughout the recruitment process. They aren’t reliant on the applicant tracking system to manage the flow of hiring but use various tools and methods to influence talent to choose you as an employer.
The need for such a person is clear: 55% of companies say that continuously recruiting throughout the year reduces their time-to-hire while 42% say that it cuts their cost-per-hire significantly. This is where a recruitment marketing professional comes in.
What does a recruitment marketing specialist do?
If it’s within your budget, build a dedicated team under your HR department. A small to medium enterprise may consider hiring a single specialist. Either one works as long as the main duties are fulfilled. These are:
- Identifying candidate personas i.e. the skill sets and profiles of the ideal candidate per role.
- Communicating the work life through social media, videos, and blog posts.
- Organising and joining events to promote your employer brand.
- Building your company culture according to feedback from your current team.
The recruitment marketing specialist salary and job description may vary based on your needs. A breakdown of responsibilities might include:
- Handling contracts with agencies and vendors.
- Generating referrals from existing employees.
- Building a community or network of talent.
- Optimising your spend on advertising.
- Engaging the followers of your employer brand.
- Creating a pipeline of qualified leads.
- Tracking and measuring results of marketing campaigns.
- Curating employee stories and other creative content.
- Managing the website section for careers.
- Overseeing any events related to recruiting.
As you can see, they play a critical role in lead generation, event management, chat communication, social engagement, reputation management, and brand awareness.
How do you hire a recruitment marketing specialist?
If you’re looking to hire for the role, we can help. Remote Workmate specialises in connecting employers with reliable offshore specialists to suit specific needs.
We conduct the screening of candidates ourselves and endorse the best ones to you. This way, you need only do the final interview and choose the Workmate you want for your team. Plus, we can handle the negotiations for recruitment marketing specialist salary, if you want.
Book a call; let’s talk about your ideal candidate for the job.
