Recruitment Marketing

Recruitment marketing refers to the process of attracting candidates to employers through the process of posting jobs and employment branding initiatives. The marketing aspect comes into play with recruiting when a recruiter is asked to “sell” both the company and job order through the web copy of the job order and any and all information about the company and the employment experience. Recruitment marketing and employment branding efforts might be considered the “pull” aspect of recruitment, versus of the “push” of direct sourcing and candidate solicitation.

The primary application of recruitment marketing is job distribution. Posting of jobs through multiple channels, both online and offline, is considered the “distribution” of jobs. Recruiters looking to market their jobs have a very wide choice of options. Recruiters may publish their jobs through Internet job boards, social media and networks, newspaper ads, niche sites, and trade publications. Even among job boards, there are a huge range of options: mass market sites for traffic, niche boards for highly segmented traffic, search engines, services based on locations, and sites meant for particular industries. The selection of channels and the rationale and strategy behind job distribution is an important aspect of recruitment marketing. Specialists in recruitment marketing often advocate a wide distribution of job postings according to definable measures of cost utility and exposure. The distribution of jobs is a science, as results can be measured and analyzed. The “artistic” aspect of job distribution is in the actual message of the job order. In order to be effective, job orders must contain proper keywords and descriptions, but also help sell the position and the company. Entire companies are built around the single specialization of crafting effective job postings. This process is referred to as recruitment marketing, you can see, because like marketing, it is both a measurable and creative act.

Employment branding is another aspect of overall recruitment marketing. Whereas job distribution and posting sells the job, the overall employment brand sells the company. Recruiters and web marketing specialists are responsible for crafting the overall hiring and employee value statement to the rest of the world. Employment branding campaigns tend to focus on what is means to work at the company, what type of environment they promote, or particular company values and mission statements. Employment branding is effective when the company is viewed both internally and externally as valuing their employees and providing a respectful place to work with a strong career path. Talent acquisition leadership is often responsible for the employment branding aspect of recruitment marketing, and other times, formal marketing companies are brought in to assess and craft a strong and purposed message.

If company and job branding have received the most attention over the past few years, it might be said that one area of recruitment marketing that is growing in importance is recruitment metrics. The analysis of candidate response and measurement of effective job posting channels has only been recently possible due to certain web tracking and applicant tracking systems. Recruitment metrics are the analytic aspect of recruitment marketing and is challenging job boards and other channels to provide accountability. Professional recruitment marketing campaigns now often include a heavy analytical component, and sophisticated data-sets and applicant polling are now included in real time during the recruitment campaign.