How to Meet Candidates Where They Are

In talent acquisitions (TA), we’ve always met candidates where they are — from “Help Wanted” signs to digital ads on LinkedIn. But today, posting on job boards simply isn’t enough.

Amit Parmar, founder of Cliquify, joined Talent Experience Live (TXL) from the HR Tech conference in Las Vegas to share how recruiters can adjust their recruitment marketing strategies to truly meet candidates where they are.

September is recruitment marketing month on TXL, so be sure to join us for more on this super-critical topic. Meanwhile, get Parmar’s top insights in the recap below, or watch the interview right here.

What is recruitment marketing in today’s context?

Today’s definition of recruitment marketing looks a little different than it did just a few years ago. To Parmar, who founded Cliquify to help businesses amplify their organic employer branding content, recruitment marketing’s most important function is building a strong online presence through native content that candidates want to interact with.

“[It’s] creating followers through content. It’s that simple,” he said. “Content is so critical these days. Gone are the days where people just look for you on a career site. People are finding content in so many different ways now.”

Meeting candidates where they are means it’s no longer enough to spend tons of money on general advertising tactics, like giant billboards. That can definitely help establish your presence — but it can’t be a one-off effort.

The next evolution of recruitment marketing is reaching candidates across social media channels with relevant, unique content that builds trust and engagement.

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Related: Scroll-Stopper: How to Tell Click-Worthy Brand Stories on Social Media

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How can you track interactions with organic social media content?

The “war for talent” may now be the “war for attention”. This means ensuring your content stands out among the deluge of ads and organic posts that bombard internet users from all sides.

But when you’re spending time and effort to post content on channels like Instagram or TikTok, where you can’t track applies, how can you tell what’s working?

At Cliquify, Parmar aims to keep the approach as simple as possible for clients by focusing on two key efforts:

• Hone a concise message to drive across your candidate base or selected segment of candidates. “From a content standpoint, it is so critical to keep things concise … everyone has ADHD,” Parmar noted.
• Track that messaging to see how it’s performing. With the right data analytics tools, you can track content performance to see what’s resonating and making an impact. (No more “post and pray”!)

From where Parmar stands, and the data Cliquify tracks, the results speak to the effectiveness of organic content.

“We’re seeing more engagement when your hiring leaders are sharing content [and] your recruiters are sharing content,” he said. “We’re seeing 3x less spend required to drive 15x traffic versus sponsored ads.”

How does organic content help build trust?

When it comes to paid advertising on social media, there’s a lot of competition. TA departments stand to gain a lot more ROI if they’ve already built a following of engaged users through organic content, increasing their trust — and the likelihood that they’ll click on those paid ads that lead to a conversion page.

Building trust is absolutely critical, Parmar emphasized, referencing Edelman’s Trust Barometer, which indicates that public trust in organizations has steadily declined over the last 10 years.

Regularly posting quality, organic content that draws candidates into the narrative is key to establishing your organization as a trustworthy, helpful resource. (Bonus: it helps elevate your site in Google’s organic search algorithms.)

What about using video content for recruiting?

By now, video has become a well-established format for engaging job candidates, for good reason. Employee-generated footage of the day-to-day experience is especially powerful.

Capturing video doesn’t have to be a big, expensive production — in fact, the more authentic, the better. The challenges organizations can encounter, though, include implementing guidelines for creating employee-generated videos, and a submission and review process to vet content before it goes live.

Tools like the Cliquify platform ease the process by providing prompts to focus employees and automating video submission and admin review procedures. They also often include data analytics capabilities that give HR teams a way to measure what content is working best.

What are the benefits of audio-only content?

Using audio content for recruitment marketing is starting to trend among Cliquify clients. Why would recruiters choose to use audio instead of video? Audio lets you “put the faces away” and focus purely on the story — which helps remove bias, according to Parmar.

“[Audio-only content] is super-interesting from a diversity and inclusion perspective,” he said. “There’s a whole area we want to address in terms of how to remove some of the biases that you might get from video.”

Final thought: Why is content like a storefront?

Picture yourself window shopping. What displays draw you in? If you entered a store based on what you saw in the window, you’d expect an experience that matches.

Like a brick-and-mortar storefront, the content you put out there on your career site and social media platforms should showcase your employer brand and values, tease the candidate/employee experience, and give candidates a reason to come in and “shop” for more.

“I view the career site and just content in general as a storefront,” Parmar said. “We’re looking at content from that perspective – what is that content that you’re putting out there?

Ready to get started? Download our Definitive Guide to Recruitment Marketing here!