3 ways how Recruiters can use Inbound Marketing to engage more candidates

Since the dawn of the modern recruitment industry, things have changed. In today's technological age, recruiters no longer use a Rolodex, the recruiters' database of the 1920s-40s. And to publicize new opportunities, recruiters do not (only) place ads in newspapers or a shop window, hoping to get a response.

Let’s face it if I would ask a room full of modern-day recruiters if they would go back to using these antiquated approaches, not one would put up their hand! Yes, the world has changed, and speaking as a fellow recruiter, we all need to change with it!

I am not talking about making drastic changes, just making small adjustments to recruit better!

So what is better, and how do we achieve it?

The solution is Inbound Marketing!

Inbound marketing “is about creating and sharing content with the world”. By carefully crafting content that is designed to engage “your dream customers, inbound attracts qualified prospects to your business and keeps them coming back for more”

So what steps do I take to implement an inbound marketing strategy?

The first step in any inbound recruiting strategy is to understand who your audience is. To do this you will need to create a candidate persona.

A candidate persona paints a more distinct picture of a candidate’s interests, career goals, and preferred working culture.

In the increasingly tight job market, with the unemployment rate at 3.6%, the lowest it has been for decades, designing a generic recruitment strategy is no longer good enough.

An interesting statistic from a report by Voltier Digital shows that the traditional outbound way, the preferred approach of most recruiters is becoming less effective.

Voltier found that “200 million Americans have registered their phone numbers on the FTC’s “Don’t call list”.

Develop Content that Delights!

One of the main principles of inbound marketing is to build up a relationship with your customers, in this case, candidates. You build these personal connections through dialogue throughout the candidate journey.

When sending an email promoting the latest opportunities, a newsletter about company news, or a press release, ask your clients or candidates how they prefer consuming content, or what social media channel they engage with.

Sharing the right content, at the right time, with the right people turn passive candidates into applicants and further down the line, can turn them into brand ambassadors.

Hubspot reports that “companies that post 16+ blogs per month on their website get nearly 3.5X more traffic to their website.”

How to use personalized-messaging through email marketing

The email has been around a long time, and it is one of the main tools of a recruiter. However, rather than using email as a tool for personalized messaging, recruiters use it for sending out the same message to different candidates- which is often a hit and miss approach.

Research shows that personalized emails are much more effective, with targeted emails generating 58% of revenue for businesses. Isn’t it time for you to consider changing your traditional approach to email?

You can use email marketing to send candidates updated job opportunities that align with their career aspirations, and cultural fit. And email marketing works at any stage during the candidate or buyer's journey. You can also measure your efforts through open rates, click-throughs, and conversions.

Testing and Re-Testing your inbound recruiting efforts

Continually testing what works and what doesn't, is a crucial part of any inbound recruiting strategy.

Don't be surprised if you don't see the fruition of your efforts the first time, continue to make incremental changes, just as an artist needs to paint and draw many pictures, or a musician needs to practice a piece of music to get perfect, recruiting businesses need to interate their marketing efforts.

Each visitor to your site finds different content formats more engaging than others. You can also experiment with various designs for your landing page to entice visitors to apply.

In every stage of an inbound recruiting strategy understanding, data will guide your efforts. Useful tools such as Google Analytics or marketing automation software tools ”will help you track how candidates find your content”.

Using an analytics platform will tell you how many candidates are clicking through a blog posted on LinkedIn “are clicking through to your site to become applicants or leads”.

Analyzing this data is also valuable for understanding which type of job descriptions engage candidates, or what aspects of your landing pages are more effective than others.

Data will only tell you half the story, so why don’t you include a field on application forms asking candidates how they found your company or the reason why they are applying.

How to make your best-recruiting efforts count

We in the recruiting business tend to hold on to our traditional approaches. They act as our security blanket for us, but we all need to let go of them if we are to grow, learn, and succeed. In my role in client services, recruiters often ask, why should I blog, or how do I know that my clients or candidates will read it?

The answer is a simple one, by creating valuable content, you are strengthening your relationship with your clients and your candidates.

By their very nature, your candidates are waiting for you to reach out to hear their stories, especially in a world where there are fewer opportunities for personal connection.

How do we in the recruiting business accomplish establishing a bond with the world through inbound recruiting; a process of discovering who our candidates and clients are so we can offer them a service that they value.

To find out more about how recruiting is changing- take a look at this video about how recruitment has become marketing.