In our recent blogs, we have looked at strategies for attracting top talent. Improving the candidate experience and company culture are two pinnacles for attracting and retaining the best employees. Yet, you may be wondering, how do we effectively communicate our culture in a way that will reach potential candidates BEFORE the application process? Recruitment Marketing is the solution.

In a newly released white paper titled “Recruitment Marketing 101: Communicating Culture to Attract Top Talent”, Gem details the ins and outs of Recruitment Marketing. Here are the highlights:

“Recruitment marketing defines and communicates the organization’s mission, purpose, and culture, and disseminates it through all the channels where your target talent is. This creates awareness for talent who not only meet the role’s requirements, but who also share the company’s vision and values—meaning they’re not only more likely to apply to your org, they’re also more likely to remain with you, as company ambassadors, for the long-term.

The Benefits of Recruitment Marketing: • increased awareness of, and interest in, employer brand • cohesive brand voice; clear and consistent company story • ready talent pipeline for when roles open • more informed, and overall improved, candidate experiences • decreased time-to-hire and cost of-hire • improved candidate quality • more qualified, better-fit hires

Recruitment marketing is the combination of tools, strategies, and activities used to help define— and then communicate—an organization’s employer brand and employee value proposition (EVP) in order to attract, engage, hire, and retain best-fit talent. Its overall strategy is rife with marketing principles and best practices: creating candidate personas; building and/or amassing high-value content that revolves around your EVP; and engaging in targeted, omni-channel distribution of that content (web, email, social, mobile, events, etc). Other strategies it’s leveraged from marketing include SEO, PPC, engagement through personalized content and tech-enabled automation, social media advertising, nurturing and retargeting with CRM, and analytics. You’ll often hear recruitment marketing described as the “pre-applicant phase” of talent acquisition (as opposed to late-funnel persuasion); but it also considerably influences the bottom of the funnel. After all, candidates who’ve fully grasped your EVP are much more likely to accept your offer when it comes in.

Step One: Define your EVP

The EVP is a foundational element of recruitment marketing: it articulates what makes working for your org so great. And it’ll be at the heart of every communication you have with prospects and candidates. Your employer brand is how people outside of your organization perceive what it’s like to work there. It’s the sum of your company mission and vision, its culture, and the benefits you can offer employees. Your EVP specifically describes the benefits. It answers the questions: Why should prospective candidates come work for your company? What are the set of unique contributions you could make to their life—beyond compensation—for a complete, and fulfilling, employee experience? What can you offer them that your competitors can’t? Why would they not only want to join your organization, but to perform their best work for you every day? Your EVP demonstrates your company’s commitment to employees’ growth and development, and to meeting their needs in exchange for their day-to-day efforts. Companies who prioritize employer branding and EVP-definition see a 50% increase in qualified candidates, 1-2x faster time-to-hire, a 43% decrease in cost-per-hire, and a 28% decrease in employee turnover.

Gartner has broken the EVP down into five elements. They are: Your EVP answers the questions: Why should prospective candidates come work for your company? What are the set of unique contributions you could make to their lives for a complete, and fulfilling, employee experience? What can you offer them that your competitors can’t? Why would they not only want to join your organization, but also perform their best work for you every day? Your answers to these questions should infuse all your recruitment marketing content.  (Gem, “Recuitment Marketing 101: Communicating Culture to Attract Top Talent” Sept 2022)

The bottom line to attracting top talent is to make sure that your values, mission and your “Secret Sauce”- aka Company Culture, are communicated through every candidate and potential candidate touch point. Solidify your EVP and Invest in Recruitment Marketing to boost talent acquisition efforts. When top talent already knows you are a great company to work for, the hiring process flows!