We all know what is going on around the world right now, therefore this blog has nothing to do with coronavirus. It has to do with how you can improve your recruitment marketing skills during a lockdown.
We have recently talked about our Work from home survival kit and How to survive the pandemic in 3 steps. However, it is time to move away from this trend that only speaks about coronavirus and deliver some knowledge. That is why this blog is all about recruiters and their recruitment marketing strategies.
For those of you who just started recruitment or are just plain unaware of the recruiting branches. Recruitment marketing is a wonderful way to attract new talent on your golden brick path.
You know the drill, grab one random thing next to you and let’s enjoy this information.
Step 1. Build a brand that will be easily recognizable.
This is actually an easy step if you know how to be yourself online and offline.
One of the best recruitment marketing strategies is to put your fingerprint on everything. Let’s start with how to build your personal brand.
Recently Wearekeen.nl had a webinar about building your personal brand as a recruiter. The speaker Sjamilla van der Tooren had an amazing view on how to build your brand as a recruiter. Here are some tips that you can use when you bring your recruitment marketing to the next level.
- Make your profile photo engaging.
Smile a little, you are not a robot. Also, a warm expression is proven to increase your human engagement (and we have to admit, candidates, are indeed humans)
- Have a personal touch in your bio.
This should be about you and only you. Be creative and express what you like, what is your purpose and why should candidates engage with you.
- Bring your personal touch in the email area as well.
This is something that you can easily do by just following the flow from writing your bio. Keep your personality flowing in every email and you will increase your open rates and engagement.
In simple words, just be yourself and bring something new in your approach to recruitment marketing. You will become noticeable and known by your unique techniques.
Step 2. Understand and improve SEO
For those of you who don’t know, SEO means Search Engine Optimization. This basically helps you get ranked on Google searches and therefore you become more visible.
Now, we are not going to enter the SEO that deep, because this isn’t a marketing lecture. However, we are here to help you with just a few tips that you can follow after you know more about this matter.
Needless to say that SEO plays an important role in recruitment marketing. You want to be as visible online as possible considering the fact that during these times online recruitment is flourishing.
So how can you improve your SEO to suit your recruitment needs?
- Adapt your job description to be SEO friendly.
This basically means that you make your content in such a way that it will get a great SEO score. Include keywords in your description as much as possible, try to make the writing more engaging with the candidate and try to follow the SEO tips from your article.
In case you don’t know how to see your SEO score, we assume you have a website as well. This means that you can install a plugin called Yoast SEO. This plugin will basically tell you what to improve and what to change in your posts.
- Rename your images that are included in your posts.
One easy tip you can do so you will rank better in searches is to rename the images you use with your keyword.
- Last, but not least, use Social Media and improve your posts.
Job descriptions are all fun and games, however, we need to adapt to the days that are here now. While some of you might use Social Media already, there is always room for improvement. Our tip for you is to actually post jobs on Social Media. Spam it daily or 3 times a week. Use keywords in your description, include engaging images that are different from the basic “We are hiring”. Show some personality and bring a fun touch in your posts.
Do not forget to use hashtags!
Step 3. Improve your candidate engagement.
Who didn’t hear about how to improve candidate engagement during their career as a recruiter? Raise your hands if you read all those articles and tell us how many did you try and what worked.
Candidate engagement is important in recruitment marketing because it increases your chances to be visible and referred. Basically you get to build your personal brand better and create your own network.
However, building that nice and fuzzy feeling for a candidate is not always possible, or fun to do. How can you improve that technique without too much effort?
- Be yourself at from beginning to end.
This means to introduce your work ethic as you. We all love an authentic person and have a gut feeling whenever someone is trying too hard. Find that voice of yours that resonates confidence, always smile and enjoy every qualification like it’s the first time.
Do not lose yourself in the process, even though the candidate is not picked. Never promise things you cannot provide and do not give false hopes.
- Adopt a glass-box mentality.
This is a trend going around the internet for the past few years. Which basically means to be as transparent as possible.
Hiding or not keeping the candidate in the loop, when he is in the process, will drastically decrease your chances of building a good engagement. Because we can all understand the feeling when you want a job so bad, however, after the interview you get the typical “We will contact you”. While it is true that companies nowadays have increased their candidate engagement, I cannot emphasize enough the need for a recruiter to do that.
A glass-box mentality is a great way to increase your candidate engagement, which by default will increase your recruitment marketing approach.
Be in touch with your candidates through the process and if you feel comfortable enough, do it also after. You will become their number one choice when it comes to getting another job in the future.
Step 4. Bring branding all over social media.
You have done sourcing all over the internet. So, why not also bring your brand?
These are tips that are used by some marketers in the business world, but you can also adapt them to your recruitment marketing techniques.
- Use Twitter, Facebook or Instagram to the max.
Going beyond the usual job posts you do on social media and branding, there are always new ways to provide your services online and bring awareness to your brand.
Try typing things like “I hate *job*”, “I need *job*”, etc. in the Twitter search bar or even Facebook. This way you should be able to find people who have a problem in need to be solved. Then you can always go and reply to their needs and offer your services. This way you market your personal brand and do some sourcing while at it.
Step 5. Do have fun and be CREATIVE!
Over here we think that the best way to actually do your job the right way is to have fun while doing it. Do not think about the big companies that have a marketing department and are killing it over the internet. If you actually get to follow some simple plans and your business model, then you can overcome these big companies and rank better with your recruitment marketing.
This is the best conclusion we can come up with. At the end of the day, your job is something you can either enjoy or not. At the current times, we have a great opportunity to actually focus on marketing ourselves in so many different ways. It is always easy to come up with different ideas since the internet is so big.
So take your turn. What kind of steps do you follow when you do recruitment marketing?
Thank you for the useful article