by Anjan Pathak is the Co-Founder & CTO of Vantage Circle
As marketing evolves, so does an HR’s role in positively impacting a company’s brand. While marketing and human resources used to be separated, today they’re converging into one department called, “HR marketing” or “human capital management.”
According to a report by LinkedIn, the top channels people use to look for new jobs are online job boards (60%), social professional networks (56%), and word of mouth (50%).
With marketing becoming more digital and customer-centric, it’s no surprise that we’re seeing a rise in human-centered marketing strategies.
HR marketing also increases the visibility of your company and builds employee engagement. Before we dive into the top trends in this arena, let’s understand what HR marketing truly is.
What is HR Marketing?
HR marketing is the process of marketing an organization’s HR offerings to both potential and current employees. It involves matching the company’s needs with suitable candidates as well as providing training opportunities for internal employees.
HR marketers have a lot of responsibilities. They are in charge of finding new talents, ensuring that these talents stay with the company for a long time and get all the necessary training.
They are also responsible for attracting potential employees, training employees, and making sure that they are satisfied while working at the company.
While the importance of HR marketing is clear, there are still many companies that do not invest in this area. They don’t clearly understand what HR marketing can do for them or they simply don’t think it is worth the money because they don’t hire frequently enough.
There are a few steps every business should take to get started with HR Marketing:
- Designing your job descriptions
- Making your jobs visible on social media
- Showcasing your company culture through content, and many more!
Top 7 HR Marketing Tips For Your Next Recruitment
1. Give Employer Branding The Center Stage.
The employer brand is a crucial part of the HR marketing mix. It’s more important than ever to go beyond listing the company’s products and services. The employer brand should be the beacon that guides job seekers to your organization.
The employer branding process varies depending on the company, but it always includes developing a clear understanding of company goals and objectives.
47% of employees said that company culture is one of the first things that makes them attracted to joining a company.
Thus, the organization must be able to articulate its unique competitive advantages and work culture. Once these are in place, the employer brand is ready to be communicated to potential applicants.
2. Step Up Your Recruiting Technology Through AI.
Many well-known companies in various industries already use AI, and it will only continue to grow. Recruitment bots have been found to be more engaging than candidate screening. This means that, as AI becomes more sophisticated, it will also become better at generating leads and improving the marketing stage of the recruitment process.
AI will not just serve as a tool for screening and assessing applicants, but will also play a role in attracting talent. You can leverage AI to provide new services, such as chatbots, to engage with visitors on your career site, generate job alerts, and even suggest personalized content based on the data you have entered on your website.
3. Make Candidate Experience Shareable.
The shareability of candidate experiences is something you should not underestimate. A positive candidate experience can do wonders for your HR marketing strategy, so make sure that you put in the effort to deliver a great one!
Today, hiring managers should focus on delivering a positive candidate experience that clearly communicates their company culture and values.
Candidates are more likely to choose your company if their experience inspires them, so it’s important to ask them for feedback and engage with them on social media.
This brings us to the next point, which is the role of social media in recruitment.
4. Get Buzzing on Social Media.
The HR industry has been evolving with the onset of social media. Today, social media is the number one tool for finding talent and connecting with them.
Recruiters will have to be more active on social media, so they can compete with candidates and other organizations for potential hires.
73% of millennials found their job through social media platforms like LinkedIn. This means that recruiters will need to make sure they possess the skills to research and track down prospects on social media.
They will also need to collaborate with their hiring managers on the company’s social media strategy. Organizations must acknowledge where candidates hang out and connect with them on a platform of their choice.
A successful recruiter will not only read job descriptions and CVs, but they will also know where and how to find candidates through less traditional channels like Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
5. Unlock Hidden Insights With Predictive Analysis.
Predictive analytics is the key to help organizations make better decisions. It also helps to find the right candidates for open positions and can tell which job applicants will perform well in a given role. By doing so, hiring managers can spend more time with those individuals who will increase company profitability.
Predictive analytics is a data-driven, systematic approach to predicting and optimizing future outcomes. It can identify patterns, probabilities, and insights that were too complicated or time-consuming to see before.
Predictive analytics allows businesses to drive better decisions by leveraging past experiences and enabling them to explore the probability of future events.
6. Invest in Employee Stories.
HR marketing is all about improving and cementing the perception of your employer brand. Credible and interesting stories from employees are the key to driving employer brand awareness, triggering engagement, and employee recognition.
Employee stories are one of the most powerful tools that HR marketers can use in order to promote their employer brand.
Stories of your company culture, the people who work there, and their personal lives outside of work will help people understand why they would want to work for you.
Investing in employee stories is not only a good idea because it improves your employer branding but it also helps you in employee retention.
It will not only better position your employer brand, but it will also make sure that you have a humanized and honest narrative.
7. Don’t Forget The Good Old Email Marketing.
Driven by the popularity of social media, email has lost some of its lusters in recent years but is still a potent tool for HR recruiting because of its mass reach and ability to stay top of mind.
It’s easy to see why email is still so powerful. It has a global reach, it’s familiar and functional, and it allows for the personal touch that other channels lack.
Email marketing is also effective in drawing attention to your jobs and vacancies. For example, you can leverage this HR marketing trend to establish a regular line of communication with targeted talent demographics.
As the cost of reaching candidates through other channels, such as social media and recruiters’ websites continues to increase, the cost of delivering a message via email remains relatively low.
Email might also offer the most personal form of communication for job seekers who don’t want to share their contact information or engage in an online conversation with every recruiter who contacts them.
Wrapping Things Up.
HR marketing has seen a decline in benefits over the last decade. The reasons are the rise of freelance labor, new business models that replace recruitment firms with internal teams, and increased use of social media for recruiting candidates.
HR marketing is an important part of a company’s marketing strategy. It’s what connects the companies with the talent providers. Therefore, HR marketers need to focus on various aspects in order to ensure that their company can attract high-quality talent and retain their existing workforce.
Anjan Pathak is the Co-Founder & CTO of Vantage Circle, a cloud-based employee engagement platform, and Vantage Fit, an all-in-one corporate wellness platform. He is an HR technology enthusiast, very passionate about employee wellness, and actively participates in corporate culture growth. He is an avid reader and likes to be updated on the latest know-how of Human Resources.
