Employees are the lifeblood of every successful company. Have you ever heard the phrase, "A team is only as strong as its weakest member?" That applies to your business.
While strong teams produce quality work and drive businesses forward, a weak link can drag you down.
With that said, you always want the top talent on your team. But how do you find them?
Developing a recruitment marketing strategy is incredibly important to attracting quality applicants. To do this, you should begin by developing quality content ideas for LinkedIn – after all, it’s the go-to social hub for professional job seeking.
What Is Recruitment Marketing?
Let’s start with the basics and build our way up from there. Recruitment marketing is the process by which you attract job candidates and applicants to your company.
The methodology behind recruitment marketing is to promote an enjoyable, positive employee experience and workplace culture as a means to attract high quality candidates to apply for positions.
Your employer brand plays a big role in whether or not someone will want to for you, so portraying it in a positive light makes a big difference.
Recruitment Marketing Strategy Tips
If your company doesn’t already have a recruitment marketing strategy, then you should get on it ASAP!
Think of it this way – highly coveted top talent will likely have offers from more than one company. So what makes your company stand out? What makes your company a great place to work? Why should they choose to work for you over your competitors?
Your recruitment marketing strategy showcases these points to candidates, so they choose you over other employers. You end up with the most talented, skilled individuals in the industry, and your recruitment time and efforts are significantly decreased.
Here are some tips for creating and executing your recruitment marketing strategy:
Engage on Social Media.
Your social media channels should be the hub for showcasing your workplace culture and employee experience.
Post stories to your company Instagram account of fun activities taking place in the office. Put pictures of holiday parties on your company Facebook page.
You should include employee generated content as well – make a video series of each employee explaining why your company is a great place to work! And don't forget – everyone loves Twitter. Use a quick tweet to post the daily thoughts of your company!
And of course, LinkedIn is the number one most important social media platform to pay attention to when you’re building your recruitment marketing strategy. But don’t worry – we’ll go into details about that a little later.
Go Mobile Friendly.
In this day and age, people do almost everything on their phones. Part of having a strong recruitment marketing strategy is to make sure that your application process is accessible.
Creating a mobile optimized career page and an application that can be completed on a mobile device will attract tech-savvy applicants.
Use Email Marketing.
Email marketing is a great way to reach potential applicants. Nothing attracts candidates more than a message in their inbox that says, “We’re hiring!”
That being said, include content in the email about why your company is a great place to work, like those employee-generated videos. You can even include an informational blog post on a topic related to the role of the open position – it will engage and interest candidates.
Communicate Via Text.
Top talent candidates appreciate easy, fluid communication with recruiters. With that said, text message is now the most popular method of communication, so why shouldn’t you use it to talk with your candidates?
When I was applying for my job here at Bluleadz, I was able to text the talent manager questions, and I always received a prompt response.
It felt like a much easier, more direct form of contact than sending her an email. It also allowed me to build a much more open, friendly, professional relationship with her, as texting feels more personal than email.
Using LinkedIn Content Ideas to Attract Candidates
Recruitment should be a top priority in any LinkedIn marketing strategy. It’s often how applicants find open positions and investigate the companies who are advertising them.
That means that all the content you post to LinkedIn will be seen by job seekers who are considering applying to a position at your company.
With that being said, your LinkedIn content can actually make or break a potential candidate’s decision to apply. If you provide engaging LinkedIn content, then it will boost interest in your brand.
But if your content is sparse and of low quality, it won’t reflect very well on your company, and the applicant might decide to look elsewhere for a similar position.
Types of LinkedIn Content for Recruitment Marketing
There’s loads of content that you can post to your LinkedIn to contribute to your recruitment marketing strategy, ranging from company specific topics to general thought leadership content.
If you’ve already got a strong LinkedIn content marketing strategy in place, then you’re already a step ahead. But in case you need some inspiration, here are a few examples of LinkedIn content ideas that can impact your recruitment process.
Event Promotion
As many know, TED Conferences is a media organization that hosts events in which experts deliver insightful speeches and performances on specific topics. TED Talks have swept the globe, and it’s now considered an honor to be asked to deliver one.
As an event-based organization, it’s only natural that TED Conferences would use LinkedIn to promote their events.
But you don’t have to be an event-based organization to promote your company events on LinkedIn.
If you’re going to be speaking at a conference, presenting at a showcase, or even just attending a networking event, share that information on LinkedIn! Let people know where they can find you out and about in the real world.
Company News
Here at Bluleadz, we regularly post updates to our LinkedIn so our network is kept in the loop.
While it’s a simple post, it creates transparency with our audience and is a small step in building a stronger connection with them – knowing that we’re making changes and moving forward brings them on the journey with us.
Providing this brief insight to the company also creates transparency with prospective applicants and allows them to get a taste of the company culture.
Thought Leadership
Patagonia regularly posts thought leadership content on their LinkedIn page, including videos of their founder addressing their audience and the general public.
This kind of content shows how engaged their brand is with their mission. Furthermore, it exemplifies that their high-level executives are still hands on with the company, which makes for a better work experience.
Finally, their thought leadership content establishes them as the best of the best in their industry, which attracts top talent who aspire to work for quality, impactful companies.
Employee Updates
eBay is an online ecommerce platform used by millions of people throughout the globe. They are a large company with thousands of employees.
Nevertheless, they still take an interest in the individual stories of their employees. For example, they recently released a story on LinkedIn about one of their software engineers who went on sabbatical to do volunteer work.
This content showcases how much eBay cares about their employees and their day to day lives and interests. The fact that an employee was allowed to take a sabbatical to do volunteer work is not lost on prospective applicants looking to work at eBay.
Bridging the Gap Between HR and Marketing
In order to develop a comprehensive, effective recruitment marketing strategy, talent managers should work with your marketing team to come up with LinkedIn content ideas together.
While talent managers should think about what aspects of the company should be showcased (what makes it a great place to work?), the marketing team should focus on how to best present and market that information on LinkedIn.
Bringing these two teams together will allow you to build your strategy up from both sides and make it highly impactful. Remember, you’re trying to attract top talent, and you can’t catch a big fish with a little hook.
Claire Cortese
I am a content creator here at Bluleadz. In my free time, I enjoy hugging dogs, watching reruns of The Office, and getting sunburnt at the beach.