Attract More Candidates Using These 6 Marketing Ideas

Recruitment marketing can often be a challenging process but we have a few marketing ideas that will ease the burden of looking for candidates.

Here are six marketing ideas you can use to reach job seekers.

1. 1. Highlight Your Company Culture

Recruitment marketing of the 21st century is vastly different from what it was in earlier decades.

This is mainly because job seekers aren’t just looking for employment but a good working environment.

People spend the majority of the day at work, amongst colleagues and playing by the rules of the company. They want to know whether the company—not just the role—will be a suitable fit for them.

As a recruiter, you should be looking to highlight this environment—the company culture, as it were—in your job postings.

Ensure that you are clear in your job description and recruitment pitches so that job seekers know exactly what they will get were they apply to work with your organisation.

Let them know what a typical day in the role would look like by sharing employee’s stories. Mention mentorship programmes and growth opportunities.

Be transparent about work hours and vacation days, which a recent study on company culture myths has found is a top priority for job seekers.

There are a number of ways you can highlight these aspects of your company culture, such as:

• Posting photos from employee gatherings on social media
• Writing blogs about company events
• Sharing videos of events and gatherings
• Highlighting employees’ achievements

We will cover the above in further points, but the important thing to remember is that you need to show job seekers what your company looks like from the inside.

1. 2. Employee Referrals

If you want job seekers to apply to you, you need to focus on showcasing your best assets—your employees.

Your company’s employees aren’t just part of the workforce—they are also your best ambassadors.

For one, your employees together have a vast network that reaches into spheres that your company may not even be targeting.

Through your employees’ networks, you gain access to a massive pool of talent—therefore, you need to tap into these potential candidate pools.

A great way to do this is by asking your employees for referrals. Instead of posting on endless job sites hoping for the best candidates to find you, ask your employees for their input.

There are a couple of reasons why this method works.

For one, employees within your organisation know the work structure and culture, and will thus only recommend suitable candidates.

For referred candidates, applying to your company will be a more seamless process because they will already know about and trust your organisation, thus making the recruitment system more effective.

Remember to make the referral process lucrative in some way—you don’t want employees to feel like they’re doing the recruitment marketing for you with no benefit to them.

1. 3. Live Video Content

Live video is steaming ahead and you should be implementing it in your recruitment marketing strategy.

The great thing about live content is that it gives organisations a human face.

Job seekers no longer feel like they are applying to a faceless entity. They can be confident that a real, living person will look through their application when they send it.

And live video content can be a great way to engage audiences long-term, instead of just marketing to them during a recruitment drive—it works work applicant and customer retention.

Here are a few methods companies can adopt for live video:

• Interviews with employees and C-Level executives
• Highlighting company culture
• Insights into the company’s hiring process
• Video tours of the company

These are just a few fun ways that you can use live video to incentivise potential candidates to apply to your organisation.

1. 4. Social Media Awareness

We’ve already alluded to ways that social media can be used to reach candidates—social media posts about employee gatherings, and live video.

But in general, social media should feature heavily in your recruitment marketing strategy.

LinkedIn is a must—but not only for posting about jobs. LinkedIn can be used to highlight your brand.

For companies looking for creative professionals, Instagram is a great hunting ground but also a great way to visually showcase your company’s culture.

However, you don’t only need to use social media to share your company culture—it is also a solid tool for attracting candidates.

Remember that most job seekers, when they’re applying for a job, and when they are invited for an interview, will look at your social media.

If they see very little content there, they may not think your company is a good fit—if the company doesn’t use a popular tool like social media to engage with audiences, then it could be perceived as old-fashioned, or worse, unenthusiastic.

Keep your social media updated with relevant and engaging content, and always post about hiring positions the moment they appear.

1. 5. Tips and Tricks Blogs

Having a company blog is a great way to attract candidates to your company.

Why? Because blogs act as the voice of the company—anybody reading it can immediately get a sense of what the company is about and what their philosophy is.

And blogs can also be used for recruitment. Place yourself as more than just a company who is looking for a candidate.

Share tips and tricks that will help your candidates—blogs on how to use a cover letter template or presenting oneself at interviews are always popular—so they engage with your brand at multiple levels.

You can also use the blog to showcase your brand as a thought leader—write about advances in the industry, the latest news, or on more generic topics with wide appeal like how to avoid workplace conflicts.

A blog can be used in a variety of ways to attract candidates and improve your reach, which is why you should be actively thinking of implementing one.

1. 6. Repurpose Existing Content

A great deal of content is created for marketing purposes, including for recruitment marketing.

And this is understandable considering the numerous channels that you want to reach candidates on.

But creating so much content can be exhausting—especially when content creation isn’t the only thing you’re doing.

Instead of making everything from scratch why not repurpose already existing content? Here are a few ways to repurpose content:

• Turn your blog posts into text-based videos
• Save your live content as videos to be shared on YouTube
• Make text content into infographics or visuals
• Use social media posts in email marketing
• Turn a presentation into an ebook using an ebook creator

There are a variety of ways to repurpose content that will save you time while still allowing you to reach the best candidates.

Summing Up

These six marketing ideas will help get you on the path to widening your audience and attracting the best potential employees to your company.