This is a guest blog post from Caroline Vooght, Senior Account Manager for Prominence Recruitment Marketing. As part of our Recruiting Weekly Series, Caroline shares her thoughts on Marketing VS Operations.
I’ve been an operational recruiter for a long time. I’m very familiar with the daily ups and downs of life in an agency, I’ve worked at all levels and with all sorts of people and across a whole variety of clients.
The pace of change has been relentless recently, as we all know. But the rise of recruitment marketing has been something that has steadily grown in importance whether you’re a business owner or an operational recruiter. And everyone is trying to be a recruitment marketer it would seem.
I’ve recently moved into recruitment marketing, and it can be hard to distinguish between what a recruiter can achieve, and where a marketing professional can, and perhaps should, step in. I’d like to shed some light on what great marketing can achieve and how to go about it, through the eyes of a recruiter.
Where does your to-do list end?!
Here’s your world. Running a recruitment desk is busy. Whether you’re in-house, operating in an RPO or working an agency desk. The pressure persists in filling roles, finding suitably experienced and willing candidates, and bringing the two together. There’s never enough time in the day, the to-do list never ends, and a recruiter has to be all things to all people.
And here’s what the reality is.
Marketing magic
Recruiters have always had to have an element of marketing magic in them. Whether writing ads, explaining a role to attract a candidate, compiling a candidate’s information to send to a client, or attracting people to join their team. It used to be ‘advertising’, but now it’s much more now.
Personal Branding has exploded. And this is something I believe most recruiters could and should be doing. LinkedIn is stuffed full of people doing their ‘thang. Branding themselves up, sharing opinions, insight, and personal stories, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But what purpose does it serve? Quite simply, it should be adding value to the reader to position you as someone to be respected, and knowledgeable in your field.
But what to say?
Can you share something that would help others? Insight, tips, tricks. You’re not giving away all your secrets, but you’re demonstrating you do know something about your craft. You’re showing you know your stuff and a staggering number of people overlook this. It’s a fine line between bragging and hitting the right tone, and a lot of people hover in this zone, unsure how to proceed.
And it can be daunting. I’ve worked with and spoken to many people who want to put themselves out there, but just can’t get going. If you know anything about algorithms, they have their own rhythm. What happens when you post on a social platform, is the computer decides who’ll see what you’ve said. And then if there’s some interaction with your post (likes, comments etc), the computer will share it with a few more select individuals. But no interaction within the first couple of hours and your post will simply fade away, most likely never to be seen again.
And this is where savvy recruiters can stand out. It’s well reported that people are far more likely to apply to an advert or respond to a message if they are familiar with you and your brand. And this all ties back into recruitment operations. More response (if you’ve targeted the right people) equals more candidates and a greater chance of filling the role. Music to a recruiter’s ears if they’ve done their job right.
But there’s more to recruitment marketing than that. Much more. Start to include copy written for SEO and properly invest in advertising targeting your specific audience (rather than just pricey job boards) and it all becomes far less fluffy, and much more aligned to where an operational recruiter wants to sit at the heart of it all and with real data to back it all up.
How do you find the time?
Well, there are some recruitment businesses that target their teams on making social posts. What gets measured gets done. If you have a team with the right mindset and approach, this is achievable, but in fact, it’s rarely the case. What’s more likely is that there’ll be those that do, and those that don’t (and don’t want to) and some apathy creeps in.
Tackling this can be tough. And this is where recruitment marketers can help. Creating social posts, researching, writing blogs, and setting up landing pages (I could go on) takes a lot of time. Don’t underestimate that. Deciding on topics and themes requires a real intimate knowledge of your audience. Knowing what’s ‘value versus noise’ and ‘brand building versus brand boring’ isn’t easy to extrapolate. Finding the sweet spot takes skill, judgement, and constant evaluation.
But there are some quick wins. Recruiters who comment on others’ posts with sensible input can easily elevate their brand. Just being consistent and showing up regularly is what’s key. Sharing others’ content with comments/insight added that’s yours is easier to do and may feel more manageable (beware of just sharing content without a comment though – you just benefit the originator and do nothing for your brand). And if your business has great content, share that! If it’s prepared well and looks good, you’ll do yourself immeasurable favours (and your boss will thank you as well).
At the end of the day…
It all comes down to ROI. Quickly realising what you can achieve versus what’s better to outsource is half the battle, and those who do embrace marketing properly will have the edge over their competitors for a long time.
Author Bio:
Caroline is an experienced recruiter with a passion for recruitment marketing. Having recently moved into this field, she shares her insight of having been in both worlds, and how to bridge the gap!
