Using Content Marketing
to Boost Recruitment Efforts
As a recruiter, it’s only natural that you want to attract the best and brightest candidates to your open job positions. You want your company to have a great impression from all angles.
What’s the key to achieving this? Simple — content marketing for recruiters. Effective content marketing is proven to be one of the most powerful methods of attracting new candidates across various online channels. In fact, over 91% of businesses use content marketing for both lead-generating and recruiting efforts. By telling a clear, compelling, and consistent story throughout the content you share across several recruiting channels, you pull in the right people to get your business to the next level.
In this guide, we help you discover the wonders of content marketing so you get noticed by top talent and reap the benefits of onboarding the best candidates.
What is Content Marketing for Recruiting?
In today’s recruiting landscape, it’s not only the recruiters who are conducting research. With majority of Americans going online to look for information about a job, the best candidates are searching for companies the same way they make purchasing decisions — which makes employer branding crucial.
Content marketing is a strategy through which companies educate and build relationships with prospective employees. When job applicants research about your company to decide if they’re a good fit for your organization, content gives them what they need to learn more about role responsibilities, your employer brand, company culture, and so much more. Informative and engaging content also draws in candidates by helping your Careers site rank higher on Google and helps you build a solid reputation in your niche as a thought leader and industry expert.
Content marketing for a recruitment agency is composed of many steps and types of content. Scroll along to learn more about them.
Steps to Building a Content Marketing Strategy for Recruiters
Job applicants expect to find content that educates them about your company before they send in their resume. They’re looking to see if your organization is a good fit for them. If your content does its job properly, the right candidates will find you instead of the other way around. You’ll be filling up your job interview scheduling software with the best potential employees.
Here’s how to execute an effective content marketing strategy for recruiting.
1. Describe your Ideal Candidate
In order to attract the best candidate, you have to know important details about your target audience.
Ask yourself: What kind of candidates do you want to attract? How would you describe them in a professional manner? How would you describe them personally? Make a list that consists of the following:
- Demographic information: Age, income bracket, location, and current job title.
- Background: educational and professional history.
- Personality attributes: personality characteristics, work ethics, strengths, weaknesses, hobbies, and interests.
- Qualifications: required skills, nice-to-haves, and certifications.
- Career goals: Where do they want to be in 5 years? What kind of career path do they want to traverse?
- Objections: What would turn off a candidate from your company? What aspects of an organization’s brand, company culture, or recruitment process would cause them to lose interest?
Of course, you can edit this list of data points to suit the goals and needs of the content marketing strategy of your recruitment agency. It is by no means comprehensive. You can also list the reasons why someone might want to find a new job or join your company: higher pay, more flexible working hours, better job security, etc. Additionally, the data you’ve collected from your recruitment software will be helpful in identifying your candidate persona. This is especially beneficial when it comes to content marketing for recruitment agencies.
Bring more structure to your recruitment with Skillfuel’s free online recruitment software. Contact us today to get started.
2. Create a Candidate Journey Map
A candidate journey map is a visual representation of a candidate’s journey. In a nutshell, it includes all the touchpoints candidates have with your company and serves as your guide for an efficient online recruitment marketing strategy. More importantly, it helps you identify the best type of content that works at every stage of your candidate journey and how to showcase your employer brand across different channels.
Click on the linked resource guide to learn more about the intricacies of a candidate journey map and how to make one as a valuable tool in content marketing for recruiters.
3. Develop Content Ideas
Ideas for content vary based on your company’s goals and the roles you’re recruiting for. However, putting in time and effort early in the process into developing a master list of possible content ideas is well worth it.
When developing ideas to launch your content marketing for recruiting, think of things that may be attractive to your ideal candidate (based on what you’ve gathered from Step 1). Things like industry news, company events, employee testimonials, how-to guides, and general tips are popular with both active and passive job seekers. Consider using tools such as the eye tracking tool from Real Eye to see how users interact and validate content quality and find what works best for your audience.
4. Build Your Content Calendar
Your content calendar is a digital or written plan of the exact dates you intend to publish your content and share it with your audience. Publishing content on a consistent schedule improves the likelihood of your readers seeing your credibility as a brand. Over time, they will trust your website as a resource for industry-related news. Putting out consistent content also creates the impression that your business or company is here to stay.
When you’re conducting content marketing for recruiting, it’s advisable to plan and organize your content around key dates and events for your company, recurring organizational happenings, and professional or general holidays. Much like how recruitment software for enterprises streamlines the hiring process, a content calendar will help you keep track of the content you have planned out.
Bring more structure to your recruitment with Skillfuel’s free online recruitment software. Contact us today to get started.
5. Write and Publish Your Content
Once you’ve followed the steps above, you can start creating your content and putting it out for the world to see! If you want to incorporate a bit of diversity into your content, tap on your current employees. There may be members of your team who are eager to write for your company’s blog, especially if it’s about internal events. You could have amazing resources hidden away to carry out a successful content marketing strategy for recruiting.
Types of Content Marketing for Recruiters
When it comes to content marketing for recruiters, your content should resonate with the candidate personas you’re trying to attract. Everything you create and post should be designed to help your team connect and build relationships with the potential employees you want to draw in.
Here are specific examples of high-performing content for recruitment marketing.
Start a Blog
Digital marketing plays a large part in the recruitment process, but online users have become more wary of ads than in the past. If you want to reach your ideal talent pool, you need to try something that’s subtle yet effective. In other words, hosting a blog on your website.
A blog on your site is an ideal way to attract job seekers and ultimately convert them into applicants for your company. Candidates want to work with recruiters who are trustworthy and authoritative, so make sure to write about topics that demonstrate your credibility. How-to pieces and “top tips” pieces tend to be successful in driving quality traffic. For instance, if you’re trying to leverage content marketing for your recruitment agency, this means writing about good resume techniques, job interview guides, or timely or relevant topics that talk about remote recruiting in the new normal.
Don’t forget to be authentic and honest — always show your human side. Candidates want to see the real people behind your employer brand. In your blog posts, use real photos of your employees and your office to showcase your company culture.
Craft a Social Media Presence
Social media is an excellent way to drive potential candidates to your business. It might actually be the most effective tactic when it comes to content marketing for recruiting. According to data from Glassdoor, 79% of job applicants use social media during their job search and 70% of recruitment managers state they’ve successfully hired with social media.
Encourage ongoing engagement by directly interacting with your followers through discussions, hashtags, Q&A sessions, livestreams, and other methods. You can use your company’s Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts to promote the roles you’re looking to fill, thereby attracting both active and passive job seekers.
Write White Papers
White papers are comprehensive documents filled with valuable information that companies use for various reasons. Some white papers are meant to convince buyers by describing in-depth a product’s or service’s unique selling points, while others promote possible solutions and create awareness for industry issues.
When it comes to content marketing for a recruitment agency, the best approach is to write white papers that tackle relevant issues and complex topics regarding recruitment and employment. For instance, you can write a white paper on the role of company culture in hiring new candidates or the unique demands of Gen Z and millennials in the talent pool.
Benefits of Content Marketing for Recruiting
Now that you know the basics of content marketing for recruiters and the types of content marketing for recruiting, it’s important to understand why it matters for your hiring process.
Builds Trust
One of the vital aspects of a successful content marketing strategy for recruiting is positioning your company as a trusted employer. Sharing your achievements, employee testimonials, and accurate industry insights lets candidates know that you're a great and trustworthy employer.
Candidate Magnet
There are thousands of jobs being advertised online that tend to use the same generic phrases. Make yours stand out with infographics and employee testimonials on your Careers page. You can include quotes from current employees, photos taken during company events, and insight into the office culture. These will keep candidates interested, including job seekers fit for potential roles that could open.
Save Money
It is estimated that the average cost per hire in the U.S. is $4,000, with around 30% of the overall budget spent on job boards. This is a significant cost, especially when job boards are not always a cost-efficient way to source the best candidates. Having a website and a social media profile that continually posts great content will engage readers and keep them coming back for more until they eventually convert into your applicants.
Leverage the Power of Content Marketing for Recruiters
In a crowded market where companies are fighting for talent, your content can be the real differentiator that lets you stand out from competitors. Your content can take on many forms — from short-form articles and social media posts to long, comprehensive white papers. What matters is you speak the language of your audience and your content resonates with the right candidates.
Raise your recruitment agency and team with a content marketing strategy today. At a time when competition between companies is intense, candidates will always be attracted to an organization they can connect with while carving out their career path. With content marketing for recruiters, you can do just that.
Hire faster, hire easier.
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