One of the most important parts of any company is making sure that you are hiring the right people. You want people who are smart, highly skilled and possess values that align with your company’s mission.
But how do you communicate to an ever-increasing talent pool that you’re the best option for them? Well, among other things, by using a tool known as talent marketing. This is a way to identify people who aren’t just the best, but also the ones who are the best fit for you and your company’s values. Let’s take a closer look at how it works.
How to Focus on Hiring the Right People
Marketing is the concept of promoting your organization or company to the desired target audience. In that same vein, talent marketing functions as the promotion of your organization to the prospective employees you want to bring into your organization.
Whereas the audience for most of a company’s marketing efforts is their existing and potential customers, talent marketing directs their message at job seekers in the employment market. It’s developing content, messaging, and branding that appeals to top talent in their specific industry.
Talent marketing can take many forms. It includes the materials you develop for new hires. It can include the scripts and talking points you provide recruiters with when they’re contacting potential employees. It includes the careers section of your website, which should be easy to access and navigate. It can also include materials you use for retention in the case of employees you’ve already hired and want to keep on staff.
Anything used to communicate the value proposition of your company as an optimal place to work falls under the category of talent marketing.
Talent marketing is essential to your company’s recruitment efforts. You can have the best place to work with the best resources and staff, but if you’re unable to demonstrate that to prospective employees, you won’t be able to convince them to join your team.
How Does Talent Marketing Help Recruiting Teams?
The more sophisticated and effective your talent marketing efforts are, the easier it will be for your recruiting team. A well-developed talent marketing strategy makes the process of recruiting and retaining top talent much simpler. It will help you focus on identifying the best candidates while also encouraging diversity and inclusion in the workplace. You can successfully execute your plan to recruit the best in your field as well as your diversity and inclusion strategy.
There are three primary ways in which talent marketing can help recruiting teams do their jobs:
Attract: Build a Talent Pipeline
Ideally, talent marketing opens up new avenues and channels to reach prospective employees. Developing multiple channels with effective talent marketing practices effectively builds a talent pipeline for your company. You’ll have materials and content you can use and re-use. They can help you build a talent pipeline through your various online networks.
For example, take a website like LinkedIn that operates as both a social network and a job board. It’s a great site for attracting top talent. Developing content specifically tailored to that channel will help you attract the countless professionals who use that site. You can speak to multiple candidates at once, even passive ones who may not be looking to move at that moment in time. This increases the likelihood that you’ll appeal to the largest number of qualified individuals possible.
Engage: Nurture Leads
Once your HR team has reached out to a candidate to begin the recruitment process, talent marketing helps move them through the funnel and engage your candidates effectively. You can have content specifically developed for the talent you’ve already connected with. By nurturing the lead, you provide them with the information needed to move to the next step in the process. This is where you can differentiate yourself from the competition.
Convert: Finalize the Hiring Process
Talent marketing can also help as you look to convert candidates to new hires. As you finalize the process, you’ll want content and information meant to handle any last-minute concerns or questions top talent may bring to your doorstep before the offer letter is signed. You can develop scripts to deal with common questions and concerns you’ve experienced, giving your recruiting team the capability to deftly avoid any issues and finish the talent acquisition process.
Start Building Your Talent Marketing Strategy
While talent marketing is a valuable weapon in your arsenal, it’s not enough to blindly develop material without forethought. Having a plan in place can mean the difference between attracting and retaining top candidates and losing out to your competitors.
That’s why you need to build a talent marketing strategy customized to your specific organization and industry. Here are four things you should consider as you look to craft your talent marketing strategy:
Focus on attracting job seekers
Using your website, your social media presence, and email outreach, develop branded content meant to emphasize the type of culture in your organization. While producing this content, make sure it includes search terms that candidates will be using when they’re looking for jobs online. Using this search engine optimization, you can capture more the attention of the audience you’re looking to attract - job seekers. You can then direct them from your branded content to your career site.
Clearly Define Why Employees Should Want to Work for You
This one is pretty simple. Define what makes your Employer Brand unique for candidates. What makes your offering better than the competition? Do you have more competitive compensation packages? What kind of benefits do you offer? What kind of career tracks do you have available, and what kind of career planning do you offer for your employees? This is where you sell yourself as being the best place to work.
Develop Content That Reinforces Your Internal & External Messaging
Whether it’s copy for your website, slick sheets to display at conferences, or thought leadership pieces posted to your social networks, you’ll want to have content that reinforces your company’s brand. You’ll want to have materials ready you can point employees to.
Explore the Best Channels to Disseminate Your Content
As you develop content, keep in mind what channel it’s best suited for. What’s good for your company website may not fly on a job board or social network. Your social media sites or blog are great places for branded content like videos or educational posts. Your website is where vital information on your company belongs, such as your mission, values, and job openings.
Hire the Right People, the Right Way
Optimizing your company’s talent marketing practices is a complex but necessary part of attracting, recruiting, and retaining top talent. It all starts with having a well-planned talent marketing strategy that will lead to hiring the right people for your organization.
For more on how Interseller can help you come up with winning strategies to hire the right people, contact us today!