This is a guest post from Tom McLoughlin at Growth Recruits, a specialist marketing company for recruitment agencies, as part of our Recruiting Weekly Series. Tom shares his thoughts on podcasting for recruitment companies.
Podcasting can be a great tool to get your recruitment company out into the world and engage with potential clients and candidates at the same time. Nowadays, companies are focusing on integrating various new strategies as part of their marketing processes, and one of the ways that the recruitment businesses across different sectors have started marketing their businesses is through podcasting.
With a creative podcast, you can not only integrate subtle marketing for your company and provide the audience with recruitment information, but you can also strengthen your voice within the industry by providing interesting and engaging content. This, in turn, will help in the tremendous growth of your brand, as you will establish yourself more firmly as an industry expert.
But how do you create an appealing podcast? Let’s discover some great ways to improve a company podcast and really shine amongst the vast universe of podcasts out there.
Do Research
It’s not just professional recording equipment and decent software that you will need to get your podcast set up. In-depth research is the root of a superior and quality podcast. Whatever area of recruitment your company deals in, always begin with researching other podcasts covering the same topics as yours and figure out what works and what doesn’t. Additionally, this might also help you to discover some exciting old interviews and stories which may inspire you when creating new podcast content.
Jot down anything you find that feels relevant, and then create episode structures from this list of ideas. Your research should seek to identify what your candidates and clients are looking for in a recruitment podcast, and the content you create from this should share deep insights that will inspire your target audience.
It’s important that your podcast is interesting and enjoyable as well as informative, as you want your audience to continue listening to future episodes. This way, you can continue to enhance and promote your brand while keeping listeners engaged in the podcast. Silver Swan Recruitment, is the perfect example of talking around the subject. The company recruits staff for private households and runs a podcast called ‘Working for the Rich and Famous’, which includes insightful, interesting and sometimes humorous discussions with guest speakers about working in the private sector. Silver Swan succeeds in creating relevant content that works for them, whilst still producing something that people are actually interested in listening to.
Feature an Expert Guest Speaker
Recruitment company podcasts will require an expert guest speaker at some point if you want to stand out against your competitors. You might be wondering what a guest speaker can do in a podcast that you can’t? Let me explain.
An audience tends to find podcasts containing advice from an expert more reliable and trustworthy. This guest can be a member of your company or someone from the same industry who has relevant knowledge about recruitment. Since they are an expert, you can bank on the fact that they will deliver the right points in diverse and appealing ways during your podcast, and keep your listeners engaged. Featuring guests in your podcast will not only improve the reliability and diversity of your content, but it also helps you to develop better relationships with other people in the recruitment industry.
Making sure the guest is tailored to the audience of your podcast is important. Sometimes it’s worth even creating a different podcast for a different focus. JGA Recruitment has been running a popular podcast since 2018, and have created two different podcasts that target the topics of HR and Payroll separately, to great success. This a brilliant example of honing in on a niche and helping you find more guests that are experts in a specific industry.
Market your Podcast
Now, as you have created a podcast, what next? This is where marketing comes into the picture to leverage the podcast audience. Here are some beneficial strategies to promote the podcasts of recruitment companies.
- Social media – No one has escaped from the clutches of social media in recent years. And since over a billion people use social media, it is the best mode to market and promote your podcast effectively. Sharing media that features creative images, videos, and GIFs on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. is a great start, as well as interacting with your podcast’s audience through social media and trying to get other accounts to promote your show. Social media has changed how marketing works in recruitment, and it’s important to keep moving with the times if your company has a podcast.
- Link it Up – Whenever you are talking about your podcast on social media, on landing pages or in blog posts, add links that take the audience straight to it. This will help drive relevant traffic to the podcast and has SEO benefits which will improve the ranking of your company’s website.
- Convert audio to video – Videos turn out to be more appealing than the audio, and many popular podcasts are now offering video episodes as well as ones that are simply sound. To increase your audience and spread the word about your podcast, consider recording it with a camera as well as a microphone and uploading this footage onto a video streaming platform.
- Upload on Podcast aggregators – For the best results, market your podcast separately for Android and iOS users. Uploading a podcast to multiple platforms like Spotify, Stitcher, and TuneIn makes it easier for everyone to access your content and means that your podcast will reach a wider audience.
Invest Your Time
Although it might seem challenging at first to create a podcast, a good investment of time will do wonders for your company and your content. Assign different tasks and themes to every team member to bring out excellent content, plan carefully and think about how you are going to structure your podcast. All it takes is your creativity and skills to compose a perfect podcast.
Most importantly, take enough time to prepare and edit the podcast. If you rush, there is a chance that you might miss some crucial points. The slicker your podcast sounds, the more likely it is to be recommended and listened to.
Some other things to remember when editing your podcast is to check that the speech sounds natural and realistic, double-check for false information, and consider adding a musical background. Catchy jingles go a long way. Also, make sure that you do not digress from the topic. Your listener’s time is precious.
Conclusion
In a nutshell, a podcast is an incredibly effective tool for recruitment companies. It can be used not just to attract candidates or give candidates great advice, but also to enhance the company’s value as a brand and attract new clients. The main aim of creating a podcast is to ensure that the information reaches the correct audience, so, always keep in mind whether the right people are going to be listening to your work.
Now that you know these tips for generating podcasts, you can start focusing and collecting your material to come up with an amazing podcast for your target audience. Good luck!
Author, Tom McLoughlin – Director of Growth Recruits 
Tom McLoughlin is the director of, UK based, recruitment marketing specialists, Growth Recruits. Tom has vast experience from his many years in digital marketing and has an in-depth knowledge of the recruitment sector and the marketing that is required to succeed.
