The COVID-19 pandemic significantly changed the processes companies use to recruit candidates. One of the biggest takeaways from the COVID-19 pandemic is that much of the hiring process can be performed virtually, which only reduces time to hire and puts more pressure on hiring managers. As a result, many recruiters will continue prioritizing virtual interviews as the first (or even only) step in the interviewing process.
As we said in a past blog, digital marketing is part of the recruitment process and is often either wholly missed, misunderstood, or underserved. After all, job marketing and promotion are highly involved, but it's a necessity. It's "involved" because it's a mix of different strategies, avenues, and mediums. We like to call it a "marketing mix"! (Clever, huh?). According to the Pew Research Center, 85% of Americans are online daily. This statistic means that online job boards and social media are more critical than ever. To successfully recruit modern candidates for your company, it is vital to have a strong, successful digital recruitment strategy.
Here are a few ways to build a solid digital recruitment marketing process:
- Create a Candidate Persona
- Write SEO Friendly Job Post
- Formulate Marketing Mix
Create a Candidate Persona
You might be asking, what exactly is a candidate persona? Well, in the realm of Talent Acquisition, a persona is a fictional representation of your ideal candidate: the person you're trying to recruit. It's not uncommon for an organization to create several personas for different candidates, but it's rarely necessary to create a persona for every job in the company. Often, personas can function across several roles. Building a candidate persona requires research, interviewing, surveys, & analysis. The result is a digital document that provides a snapshot of the ideal candidate shared among those involved in hiring.
Candidate personas are essential because you want to find people who match your company's ideals and culture! To find the perfect candidate, you must think beyond the apparent list of job requirements. You have to learn who they are first and then be present in the places where they spend their time. In addition, candidate personas can help with interviewing (having a customized questionnaire can make the interview less formal and focus more on the position), marketing (allows for targeted ads based on personal attributes), and career pathing (knowing unique motivators and expectations can help create the right career path and increase chances of retention)!
To help, we created a Candidate Persona Canvas that highlights some of the most important details you should know before moving forward with the recruitment process. Learning this information will save you time and help you avoid a bad hire.
Write SEO Friendly Job Posts
When a job opens up in your company, the first thing to do is to share that with the world! There are many steps to creating a friendly and robust SEO job post, so that we will share a brief overview with you:
- Include Keywords
- Start with the obvious: the job title. From there, brainstorm a list of keywords relevant to the job description.
- Avoid inserting the same keyword(s) repeatedly. Use synonyms to ensure job sites won't censor your posting for "keyword stuffing," which is considered spam! If done right, when a candidate searches for "X job" in "X location," your job will be one of the first in the search results!
- Check the URL
- Search engines and searchers alike appreciate when your URL is self-explanatory & it can improve your ranking. Plus, keeping it short allows your job posting more opportunities to be indexed by the search engine.
- Share on Social
- The more the job opening is shared on a social network, the better it will rank in search results. Search engines look into traffic and shares to influence their algorithm for search results.
- Posting your job listing on high-traffic job sites gets your jobs in front of active job-seekers and leads to better SEO.
- The current best practices for job posts: 500-700 words in length
Formulate Your Marketing Mix
When determining the best ways to invest your budget, job sites are just the beginning— diversify your marketing and add more tools to your marketing mix! One of the most essential lessons in recruitment is learning that marketing is all about experimentation. Try different mediums to attract applicants, utilize photography and graphics to promote your openings online. There are so many ways to find the best marketing mix for your company!
Some of the mediums that can help attract applicants are:
- Email: You can contact previously qualified job applicants from your ATS (applicant tracking system)
- Social Media: Career-specific pages can help candidates find links to jobs, updates on company culture, press, and more.
- Text-based: Schedule mass texting campaigns to market your job openings. There are many mass texting platforms, but our recruiters use TextRecruit.
- Job Fairs: Fairs allow you to access large pools of active job seekers and allow you to meet and talk with candidates. Be sure to research the job fair to ensure they host suitable candidates and is in the correct location.
- Direct Outreach: Don't be afraid to try different approaches and reach out to candidates. Compliment them on recent achievements, discuss mutual interests/connections, or sell open positions and company cultures.
The joy of a marketing mix is that there are so many combinations you can mess around with to find what works best for your company. Don't be afraid to try new things across each medium to find what works best for the company and applicants alike!
These are only a few of the significant steps you can take to create a solid digital recruitment strategy. As digital recruitment strategies become more and more prominent across the workforce post-pandemic, ensuring that your company has a robust system in place is crucial to your hiring process.
Looking for tips on how to improve your digital recruitment process? Download our latest eBook, The World-Class Recruitment Guide, for everything you need to know.
