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7 Reasons Why Recruitment Marketing Is So Hot

Even after the height of the global pandemic, recruitment marketing is still a critical part of the hiring strategy for most companies. In a study from Aptitude Research, 81% of companies said that recruitment marketing is different now in the “post-pandemic” world, and at least one in three companies are increasing their recruitment marketing budgets to hire better talent this year. Why is that? People have been talking about recruitment marketing for years, so why has it become such a critical part of the recruiting strategy for organizations trying to hire top talent?

There are a few good reasons:

1. Traditional tactics aren’t as effective as they used to be

The returns from more ‘traditional’ recruiting tactics (e.g. job advertising) are flattening out, particularly when it comes to hard-to-fill roles.

Job ads work for many high-volume, high-velocity roles, but suffer from a couple of significant flaws. They rely on a moment of serendipity: your ideal candidate needs to come across your job at the exact moment that they’re looking.

Job ads are more costly now than they used to be compared to other recruiting methods. A recent study showed that social media recruiting strategies can provide a 68% cost savings over traditional job ads.

At a time when up to 53% of professionals plan to leave their current job within the next 12 months, you need to find a way to tap into today’s huge talent market more effectively. Recruitment marketing gives organizations a way to engage candidates who aren’t ready to apply right now and build a relationship to hopefully encourage them to apply in the future.

2. The new candidate journey

“Job seekers are behaving like consumers when they look for jobs” – Greg Savage, Principal at The Savage Truth

Today’s candidates are savvier, more informed and more particular than ever before when looking for a new role.

They research jobs (and employers) the same way they would research any major purchasing decision – they have the resources to learn almost everything about your company before they even think about applying. Now more than ever, the only way to win candidates’ hearts and minds is to focus on engagement and consistently deliver authentic and personalized experiences.

Recruiters need to invest more time in marketing to their target candidates and creating value and educating them on why their company could be the right fit. Recruiters can no longer go straight to pitching their open roles.

3. Changing candidate expectations

It’s easy to forget that candidates are also consumers, and as consumers, they’re used to engaging with businesses like Amazon, Airbnb, and Netflix that put the customer experience above everything else.

The amazing, on-demand experiences that companies like these provide are a pretty stark contrast to the application process that many candidates go through.

Candidates expect recruiting teams to engage with them on their terms. They expect personalization at every level and communication should always be relevant — quite simply, they expect better.

The rules of engagement have changed, and without recruitment marketing, talent acquisition teams are ill-equipped to deliver the personalized experiences that are needed for any company looking to hire the best talent.

4. Cutting through the noise

It’s getting harder and harder to compete for candidates’ attention online. Companies aren’t just competing with other job ads, they’re up against a wave of other digital distractions such as social networks, games, ecommerce websites, streaming platforms, and more. The nature of online behavior is changing. If you provide a weak candidate experience on your site, people are far less patient than they used to be. They’re much more likely to jump to social media (or a competitor’s career site) than to click ‘apply’ on yours if you provide an underwhelming experience.

The online space is so crowded that to get your message across and stand out to the right candidates, you need to change your strategy. The experiences you provide must be higher-quality and more personalized than ever before — you need to invest in strategic recruitment marketing to win top talent.

5. Hiring teams are becoming more sophisticated

Recruiting is becoming far more relationship-centric, and as a result, the composition of many recruiting teams is changing. We’re seeing many organizations divide up the recruiting process into multiple different specialties — by having specific employees handle areas like sourcing, employer branding, and recruitment marketing separately. The introduction of a more diverse range of skills and capabilities to the recruiting organization make recruitment marketing easier to adopt. Instead of asking full cycle recruiters to take on a new responsibility, many teams are hiring people with marketing backgrounds to run their recruitment marketing programs.

6. The technology is there to do it properly

Many of the principles of recruitment marketing have been utilized by companies before, it’s only now though that the technology exists to run recruitment marketing effectively at scale.

Solutions like Beamery are making it possible for companies to source, attract and engage top candidates who would never apply otherwise.

7. It just makes sense

Marketing to candidates, building your employer brand, focusing on relationships not jobs — it all makes a lot of sense. Sales and marketing departments have become incredibly sophisticated in the way that they interact with potential customers, recruiting teams are now following in their footsteps.

Why Do Organizations Need a Talent Lifecycle Management System?

Top candidates have more options than ever before, and in such a competitive setting, every aspect of the recruiting experience matters. It’s on the talent acquisition function to design the new way of working that will bring in the best talent.

There’s an entire section of our website dedicated to sharing resources about recruitment marketing and employer branding. Read more about how you can attract and retain today’s top talent.