Recruitment Marketing:

A Content Checklist

Contents

Foreword

Recruitment and Marketing

The Role of Content

Just What IS Content, Exactly?

1. RELEVANCE: Does Your Content “Speak” to its Target Audience? - Creating a Candidate Persona

2. VALUE: Does Your Content Communicate an EVP?

3. CULTURE: Does Your Content Showcase Company Culture?

4. VISUAL APPEAL: Is Your Content Eye-Catching?

About Clinch

4

5

6

7

89

10

11

12

13

Recruitment Marketing: A Content Checklist

3

That the best candidates for your company are already gainfully employed, is a fact.

That this renders them unreachable, or closed to what your company has to offer, is not.

In fact, 85% of fully-employed professionals around the world say they’re “approachable” about new jobs — a statistic that substantiates the need for forward-thinking companies to embrace a more proactive style of recruiting.

In today’s highly competitive climate, hiring success is reliant on a recruiter’s ability to find and engage the ideal employee early on - before a position even becomes available.

This is where recruitment marketing comes in.

Top talent knows it has the upper hand. It knows it’s in demand. Top talent knows it can afford to sit back and wait to be seduced.

Recruitment marketing is the vehicle for that seduction, and content, the catalyst.

This eBook examines the idea that recruitment IS marketing, and breaks down the core components of content that is designed and delivered with a view to converting the best candidates into applicants.

Foreword

Recruitment Marketing: A Content Checklist

4

Recruitment and Marketing

As people-centric processes that operate around the core elements of attraction, engagement, and conversion, and have the potential to shape —even determine— the success of a business, modern recruitment and marketing have plenty in common.

Much like a consumer requires information about a product or service ahead of the point of purchase, candidates require information on a company as an employer.

In fact, in many ways, recruitment IS marketing.

And yet, it’s important to highlight the differences, too, as Antony Hall — Senior Talent Manager at Air New Zealand — did at the recent #ATC2015 event in Auckland.

The flows of money and work(product) are in opposite directions for starters.

In terms of the difference between consumer product and career, rare is the purchase that can affect your life as significantly as the right or wrong job. Rare, also, is the sale that can affect the performance of a business as dramatically as the right or wrong hire.

With this in mind, you could argue that giving a candidate as much information as to what it’s like to work in an organization in advance of them applying, is even more important than giving the buyer of a product or service the information they need prior to making a purchase.

Whatever way you look at it, the need for recruiters to realize the potential for sales and marketing techniques to make a positive impact on their talent acquisition efforts, is both very real and very present.

Recruitment Marketing: A Content Checklist

5

The effectiveness of content marketing as a means of communicating key information to potential customers has already been proven in the context of traditional sales.

Not only does it give buyers information to help them make the right decision, the lead generation that happens as a result, helps sellers understand which individuals they need to focus their sales efforts on, too.

At Clinch, we think a similar approach can do an even better job when it comes to hiring and retaining the right people.

With more information available to them, candidates make better decisions about the jobs they apply for whilst employers get to understand a lot more about a potential candidate before they enter the traditional pipeline.

The Role of Content

Recruitment Marketing: A Content Checklist

6

Just What is Content, Exactly?

In the context of marketing, content refers to any and all media that is created, published, and shared with a view to acquiring and retaining customers.

In a recruitment context, the same definition applies. All you have to do is swap out “customers” for “candidates.”

This means job descriptions, career websites, social posts, employee videos, blogs, and more.

In the following pages, we’ll highlight the 4 major things to consider when creating recruiting content.

Recruitment Marketing: A Content Checklist

7

First, let’s define your target audience.

This is the specific group of people at whom your content is aimed with a hope of converting them into applicants.

The most effective content doesn't speak to the most people; it speaks to the best, most relevant people for you and your business.

In a recruitment marketing context, your target audience is your ideal employee.

Who are they? And it’s not enough to imagine that person on a conceptual level. In order to create content that resonates, you’ll need to bring that ideal candidate to life.

How? By building a candidate persona.

What is a candidate persona?

Drawing on HubSpot’s definition of “buyer persona” and adapting it to suit recruitment, “candidate persona” is best summed up as follows:

1. RELEVANCE

Does Your Content “Speak” to its Target Audience?

“A candidate persona is a semi-fictional representation of your ideal candidate based on market research and real data about your existing employees.

A detailed candidate persona will help you determine where to focus your time and guide content development. As a result, you will be able to attract the most valuable candidates to your jobs.”

Recruitment Marketing: A Content Checklist

8

Once you have all of the information squared away, you should put a name and an image to each candidate persona, based on the job to which you’ll be seeking to attract them e.g. Frankie, the Frontend Developer.

You now have in front of you, albeit on paper, the ideal candidate.

With a clear picture of who you're talking to, creating targeted recruiting content that resonates becomes considerably easier.

Creating a Candidate PersonaFirst, make sure you’re clear on the responsibilities and requirements of the job you’re advertising.

Then, drawing on the attributes of actual, existing employees who you know to be an asset to the company, answer the following:

• Skill set: what skills should your ideal candidate have?

• Previous experience: in what kind of industries or roles would you prefer them to have worked in the past?

• Ambition: what are their goals - both personal and professional?

• Attributes: what personality traits and characteristics should they have in order to compliment or enhance the culture of your company?

• Hobbies: Who are they outside of work? What hobbies and passions might they share with other members of your staff?

• Values: what values does your company look for and celebrate in its employees?

Does your set of candidates put an emphasis on social media freedom, salary, vacation time, or something as small as dress code? Know what they’re looking for, and let them know you offer that.

Next, consider any possible questions, concerns, or objections they may have with regard to taking up a job at your company.

Recruitment Marketing: A Content Checklist

9

Now that you know WHO you're talking to, you can start to think about WHAT you're telling them.

Remember, the objective here is to position your company as an employer of choice with those who are most likely, already gainfully employed elsewhere.

That means selling them on an opportunity that encompasses more than just a job.

Any recruitment marketing content you create and distribute must communicate your company’s Employee Value Proposition i.e. the sum of the rewards and benefits on offer to employees at your workplace.

Your EVP will factor in both financial and cultural aspects, and should be shaped and refined based on input from everyone — from the summer intern right up to the C-suite. It may be the case that your company has multiple EVPs, depending on who it is you’re targeting, their level of seniority, and which department you’re hiring for.

2. VALUE

Does Your Content Communicate an EVP?

Recruitment Marketing: A Content Checklist

10

While undoubtedly an aspect of your EVP, your company's culture is influential enough in the mission to recruit top talent that it exists as an entity deserves its own section here.

Company culture encompasses everything from the personality traits and lifestyles that existing employees have in common, to the processes your company puts in place to achieve and measure its goals, to the values of your company.

Put yours front and centre in your company's recruiting collateral if it's to resonate with those who will be a good fit culturally, as well as in terms of skills.

3. CULTURE

Does Your Content Showcase Company Culture?

Recruitment Marketing: A Content Checklist

11

4. VISUAL APPEAL

Is Your Content Eye-Cathching?

If you want your content to resonate with candidates, and generate returning traffic to your website, it's smart to double down on visual.

Including images, videos, and infographics in your recruitment marketing content not only makes it more attractive to candidates, it significantly ups its "stickiness" factor, too — ensuring your company stays front and centre in the candidate's mind long after they've left the careers page or Twitter feed. 

With top talent firmly in the driving seat and well aware that it wields the power, recruiting today is a game of seduction. Secure the win by delivering content that's easy on the eye.

12

Contact us:

US:

Suite 1301,

307 W. 38th St.,

New York,

NY 10018

(646) 665-2056

sales@clinch.io

EMEA:

CHQ Building,

Custom House Quay,

Dublin 1,

Ireland

+353 (1) 687 7178

sales@clinch.io

Recruitment Marketing: A Content Checklist