Recruiters in the Channel are no strangers to fluctuating markets. When the pandemic struck, companies that had focused exclusively on candidate acquisition after years of a talent shortage, found themselves scrambling to create a strategy to retain and stand out from the crowd.
Successful recruiters have been able to pivot strategy, focus resource and energy at attracting quality candidates to apply via job boards, and emerge from the pandemic poised for growth. Fast forward and the talent shortage is stronger than ever. Recruiters are still busy despite high inflation, the cost-of-living crisis and concerns over a looming recession.
While most recruitment leaders recognise the need for a marketing function, there is often a misalignment – and possibly a misunderstanding – between marketing strategy and their business and growth goals.
When strategic delivery, technical know-how and data-driven initiatives work together, marketing should be delivering tangible ROI that contributes as an equal partner to business development and organisational growth.
Under the microscope
As a recruitment leader, this is your opportunity to further understand the power of marketing and its potential to grow your business. Every recruitment leader in the Channel should ask questions such as: is our marketing plan aligned with our business goals?
Too often marketers are not informed about the wider operational and growth targets. This prevents them from delivering a recruitment programme that’s aligned with business objectives.
Next, how many qualified leads did using job boards yield last year? Posting your vacancies on a job board with the right audience drives meaningful return – specifically posting a vacancy or candidates submitting a CV. If you’re not tracking leads, then it’s impossible to determine if this job board is having a tangible impact.
What are our three best performing channels? Why? Marketers have access to enormous amounts of data, and when measured and analysed effectively, can clearly demonstrate which recruiting channels are delivering the greatest return. Focus marketing efforts on those initiatives that yield ROI.
In addition, what is your candidate cost per digital channel? Identifying which channels, such as social media and job boards, yield the best quality candidates, allows you to focus your resources and budget to deliver the most effective candidate attraction campaigns.
Next, how is social media contributing to ROI? How do we know it’s working?
Most recruiters post content on social media, however, aside from anecdotal feedback of its contributions towards a consultant’s personal brand, it can be one of the hardest channels to measure for true ROI. While social channels provide top-of-funnel touch points, it is often a branding exercise that’s difficult to track through to a job offer.
Finally, how are you measuring performance? Don’t get sucked into the vanity trap of social likes and shares. A strategic and KPI-driven job board should measure job views and allow you to manage applications.
Attracting talent
When using external recruiters, Ollie Benn, recruitment director, Neoci, said, “It’s not just telcos that are struggling to hire the right people right now, it is a global issue. There are key mistakes that so many businesses are making which can become blockers to successfully hiring.”
Benn explained that, to attract the right talent, businesses must simplify their interview process, increase their budgets where possible, offer hybrid/remote working, put the salary on job adverts, and seek to hire will over skill.
Comms Business Jobs is an industry-specific consultative platform for jobseekers and recruiters, not just a jobs board. Jobseekers and browsers can search and apply for the latest jobs within specific sectors, by function, location and salary band.
If your requirements are specific, you can register to receive email job alerts, so that when relevant vacancies are published, you can easily apply for the best available roles.
For recruiters seeking to attract talent, all standard job listings are currently free to advertise until September 2023. Your vacancies are automatically sent to relevant candidates who match your criteria on our database.
Jobs are also searchable by recruiter, making it easy for jobseekers to find your company and latest jobs. We offer tiered packages, designed to suit every need. Featured jobs are listed within a special weekly email, sent to 19,000 Channel subscribers.
This article appeared in our April 2023 print issue. You can read the magazine in full here.