How you market your business to customers is completely different from your hiring processes, right? Wrong. Just as you create specialized campaigns and a company brand in order to attract the right customers to your business, so, too, you make similar efforts in how you recruit new talent.
While interview processes that include checking references and performing routine background checks can weed out some of the bad candidates, having a strong employer brand will allow you to funnel some out before they even apply.
Company Branding
When it comes to recruitment and marketing, job seekers and customers are often looking for the same kind of information: what your business’s brand, values and culture are like. How you present your company to the public will affect not only what kinds of customers do business with you, but what kind of job seekers will respond to your recruitment efforts.
- Campaigns aimed at customers will expand beyond your target market. Potential talent will see your ads, and that will have an effect on their decision to apply within your company.
- A recruitment campaign that greatly differs from your company branding – as denoted through your marketing efforts – implies an internal cultural dissonance that job seekers will pick up on. It will make them wary of approaching your company.
Your business branding needs to be consistent across all departments – marketing, sales, HR, and recruitment.
Market Data
You utilize customer data in order to direct your marketing campaigns, but do you use applicant data to direct your recruitment strategy? Both are geared towards making a conversion – for marketing, a sale, and for recruitment, a new hire.
The talent pool is a marketplace just like anything else. You want the best prospects to find you and make a conversion. According to Business.com, “After you’ve gained a sufficient understanding, you’ve got to align those benefits with the same brand that is touted elsewhere. By basing your brands off of reality and aligning them, you create synergy that is real.”
- Track what job boards and sites you use to promote your job postings – how many applications you get from each, the quality of those applications, and how many turn into successful hires. That large job aggregator board may send you 100 applicants per position, but if it’s not resulting in quality candidates, it’s a waste of time and money.
- This process should sound familiar if you’ve ever placed an ad online that got a lot of clicks but no conversions. Optimizing your campaigns for substantial results is the goal of both marketing and hiring.
Internet and Social
If your business doesn’t have a presence on social media, you’re missing out on valuable marketing space as well as an important aspect of your recruitment strategy. Customers view your social profiles in order to learn about your company, comment on your products, and request customer service support.
Job seekers also view your profile to learn about your company, your products, and your corporate culture. For both of these reasons, your social profiles need to be engaging, interactive, and filled with interesting content that attracts and keeps your audience’s attention – both customers and potential hires.
- The importance of social media in the recruitment process cannot be understated. According to a survey from Jobvite, 92% of companies in the U.S. used social platforms for recruiting in 2012, and 73% successfully hired a candidate through social media.
- The most popular platform for hiring was LinkedIn at 93%, followed by Facebook (66%) and Twitter (54%).
- 49% of social recruiters reported an increase in the quantity of applications, and 42% experienced an increase in the quality of their applicants.
Your hiring and marketing practices are linked in several ways. Your company branding has an effect not only on what kind of customers you gain, but also what kind of job applicants you receive. Both types of campaigns are directed by insights gained from specific market data, and both are significantly augmented by an active social media presence.
About the Author: Megan Webb-Morgan is a web content writer for B2B lead generation resource, Resource Nation. She writes about small business, focusing on topics such as social media hiring. Follow Resource Nation on Facebook and Twitter, too!
Image courtesy of Danilo Rizzuti / FreeDigitalPhotos.net