3 Ways to Use Marketing to Boost Your Candidate Pool

Marketing isn’t just valuable for bringing leads into the sales funnel or increasing brand recognition. It can be instrumental in streamlining your recruitment process and building local brand awareness. Unfortunately, too many companies don’t realize how to marry their talent acquisition and marketing strategies. As a result, they have difficulty shaving off their time-to-fill rates and fostering a more efficient hiring process.

How can marketing help? By giving candidates a dose of employer branding power that local recruitment sometimes lacks. Job seekers are overwhelmed with choices in this job market, and often, the employer’s brand drives their decision to apply. After all, it’s not enough for them to love the job; they want to love the company they work for, too.

Creating a recruitment marketing message around “the why” is critical to your ability to convert candidates. Strong marketing teams share glimpses of their company’s benefits, culture, and core values through their blogs, social media, and testimonials, which can better position your company as an employer of choice in a crowded market.

The stronger the connection between marketing and recruiting, the more engaging your employer brand becomes and the more compelled candidates will be to look your way. What other marketing tactics can help you woo high performers? Here are a few:

“Day in the Life” Videos:

The phrase “show, don’t tell” is one we’re all familiar with. In the case of hiring, you can only talk about a job and an organization so much to a candidate — at some point, they’ll need to see it for themselves.

Developing a “day in the life” video for each department or role in an organization allows potential employees to see themselves at the company. These videos don’t have to be Hollywood quality to be exciting and energetic. When offered alongside job descriptions, “day in the life” videos better prepare and energize applicants.

They can also be used throughout the interview and onboarding processes as reminders about the breadth of a position. Plus, it can serve as a sneak peek of what being a part of your team and your company really means.

FAQ Portals and Essential Materials:

The hiring process usually involves a lot of repetition. For instance, candidates tend to ask the same questions or request the same materials. Why not roll all those materials into something candidates can easily access?

With help from hiring managers and recruiters, marketers can create digital collateral such as online help desks to streamline the hiring process and eliminate redundancies. It’s much faster and more efficient for candidates to find the answers to their questions on their own or even with the help of an AI chatbot.

Proactively answering candidates’ questions serves a twofold purpose. First, it fully informs them of expectations in the role and the company, which better prepares them to decide. Second? It sets a precedent for you, the company, as one that values people and their time — and that’s the kind of company anyone would want to join.

Custom Messaging:

Often, when recruiters struggle to fill positions, the issue is the messaging. Refreshing that communication to make it specific and descriptive can bring an excited and informed group of candidates to the table.

The marketing team can craft messaging to increase candidate conversion. Whether it’s updating the job post, writing fun social media copy, or developing specific recruitment campaigns for hard-to-fill roles/shifts, your marketing team is there to support the overall recruitment strategy.

Hiring doesn’t have to happen in a vacuum. It can be a genuinely holistic team effort across many departments, including marketing. In fact, marketing’s assistance could be the secret to a   more efficient hiring process for many companies who want to find and keep great people in the fold.