Recruitment Marketing Is About Doing Things In Order

If you’re a big, well-known company, then the volume of applicants isn't your problem.

Recruitment marketing is about doing things in the correct order:

• You need to know what makes you attractive versus your talent competitors who are all looking for the same people. Work out your distinctive positioning and ensure it’s communicated consistently at every touchpoint. Everyone’s ‘innovative’ and ‘collaborative’, etc. - yawn 🥱. (Anyone order the ‘Employer Bland’ salad?). Get specific. Show how. And if you can’t offer something distinctive (let’s face it, most can’t), then at least 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦 in a way that is. Oh, and if your culture is toxic, then your employer brand is a lie, so fix the former before animal rights activists protest outside your offices for testing lipstick on a pig.
• You need a great candidate experience before obsessing over applications. How’s that career site looking? And when I click "Apply", what happens? Will it inspire me to progress or make me lose my will to live? If I knock on your door, am I walking into Willy Wonker’s emporium, or will the experience be as horrific as becoming the middle-man in a human centipede? Can you see how many people come to your site, how many start their application, and how many people complete it?  10,000 visits with 2000 people clicking 'Apply' and only 10 landing in your database isn’t a problem with people 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 to apply. Before erecting all your fancy content signposts, ensure your destination can welcome everyone you direct to it.
• You need an effective recruitment function before scaling leads. Great, you’ve ramped up applications by 10x. Yay! But you’re not geared up to process them. Bugger! So, you know that employer brand you created? Yeah, well, you can kiss the positivity towards that goodbye because you’ve annoyed 10x the number of people with a crappy experience, where they haven’t heard from you in yonks as their CV rots in your ATS graveyard.

The ugly truth is that most companies struggle to do step 1. Step 2 is often a train wreck, and sadly, with the recent levels of redundancies in recruitment, step 3 ain’t looking too purdy either.

So the next time someone says they need 10x more applications (usually with minus 10x the budget), try advising them to redirect that money into fixing the root causes of their problems.

SIDE NOTE: This is why the best, strategic employer branders know that branding and marketing aren’t just about taglines and pretty pictures on career sites and social media. They're about fully understanding and connecting the dots between your organisation's culture, EVP, brand, and communication. And then involving themselves across the business to hold people’s toes to the fire to ensure the walk is talked at every touchpoint across your people experience.