How recruitment and marketing are interrelated

When a company has to hire people and get candidates’ attention that’s exactly where HR meets marketing – recruitment is the byproduct of marketing and HR. You cannot hire or get market’s attention unless you think like a marketer with the intention of creating a buzz about your company that “We are hiring” or “We are the biggest in the market” – that’s how people will contact you and would want to work with you.

Getting your company’s name registered in your audiences’ consciousness as a credible employer is essential these days; job descriptions and fancy packages don’t work anymore when it comes to a recruitment drive. This fact has been established by various companies time and again which is why employers are taking notes from marketing and branding professionals in a bid to portray the company as a developed and trustworthy employer – with the aim to build it till everyone just wants to work with them.

The way HR/Recruitment draws the potential employee’s attention and how they acquire the same also plays a vital role in employer branding. This is the point where employment relationship initiates, where expectations are built – and this is what eventually decides whether or not the relationship turns out to be fruitful in the long-term.

How recruitment works

Recruitment is a rather precise process of identifying and recognizing potential candidates that fit a particular job description – it aims to get adequate resources on board as well as leave a long-lasting impression in general so candidates can reach out to the company in the future too. And, this entire phenomenon is underlined by pure marketing directed at the employer’s branding. In some countries and some companies, even today, Recruitment and Human Resource Management are popularly considered as two different fields and departments, however technically speaking they are not.

How employer branding works

Every forward-thinking HR, Recruitment and Talent Acquisitions department and agency is already capitalizing on employer branding for hiring resources. However, the most common reason for unsuccessful effort is considered to be lack of a well-defined strategy to get the desired result.

How to meet the talent acquisition goals with employer branding

There are multiple ways to gauge the success rate of your employment branding efforts, and as the niche grows, more parameters are predicted to develop. Here are the crucial points on which the success of employers’ branding typically depends and the employer or HR can easily judge the outcome against these commonly used factors:

Retention rate: how long they stick with the company.

Employee engagement: how much the newly hired endorsed the company and if they ever recommended someone after joining.

Quality of hire:

• The amount of business they brought since they joined.
• Cost per Hire, after deducting all the expenditure on marketing and hiring.
• The number of applicants received for each job.

Allocate budget based on past successful hires

Fact is that most of the times it is hard to justify resources invested in marketing and branding, and it is even harder to demonstrate the effort is actually making a difference. The best way and the most practiced idea is to dedicate specific email IDs or phone numbers to keep a track of the outcome from all invested resources. An even more popular methodology is to ask the candidate: “how did you hear about this vacancy?” To get an even more accurate answer, employers or HR typically ask the newly hired candidates on their day of joining as to how they got to know about the company or the particular job. In the US, the majority of companies rely on internal referrals, and they usually offer referral bonuses if a recommended candidate is hired. According to many hiring managers and some recent researches, referrals from existing employees actually save a lot of time because candidates coming in know what the job and company are about. An internal referral would naturally suggest someone who is the most suitable and qualified for the company and matches the job description the most.

Experimenting is good, but it should always be in the right proportion; if you are constantly and mindlessly experimenting with new sources, you would not be able to utilize the potential at hand or might even lose the opportunity to negligence.

Investing in the right channel

This point brings us to the most resourceful source – make sure while selecting the source to attract a candidate, the channel you allocate investment for allows room for the marketing aspect too – for the message must remain in public consciousness. For example, a well-written job description shared with the public and/or on social media platforms will vanish within a week and nobody is going to come back and search for that again. Contrary to it, if there is a visual ad whether an image saying a few lines about the company, or just a logo followed by job requirements and description, or 30 seconds video shared with job title and right caption, that will endorse the branding aspect even if it appears online or offline in print form a year later.

Design the right strategy

As discussed above the only reason well-executed and super hyped marketing campaigns could not achieve expected results is these were not wisely strategized. In order to ensure success besides investing money, time and resources, planning and strategizing must also be carried out. Focus on working smart, not hard.

An added suggestion for brainstorming and finalizing the plan is to:

• Keep the approving team to the minimum possible number. Do not involve more than 2-3 people, because too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth.
• The best method is to involve and invite all the stakeholders who can approve or disapprove ideas, nonetheless, establish clear outlines for ultimate decision-making.
• Keep it low-key because more often than not when an innovative idea is presented to a number of people, what is eventually approved is less unique and only gives an impression of repetitiveness. Uniqueness is always brought forth by a few individuals who dare to differ, not by a crowd who follows the norms like a herd of sheep.

What is eRecruitment

E-recruiting fundamentally deals with attracting, recruiting and retaining the job seekers. It is also referred to as virtual recruitment where employees are hired only through the use of the internet. It is also popularly referred to as Internet recruiting, virtual recruiting, online recruitment, or eRecruitment.  Out of all the Americans, who search for jobs, about 58% utilize online resources; jobbatical.com reports 59% of candidates to research the companies online before applying and/or interview while Careerarc.com states 91% of employers and recruiters use social media to influence and hire potential candidates.

Conclusion:

If recruitment is the point where HR meets marketing – simply by branding the employer and utilizing conventional marketing to attract talent – this should be done with a properly outlined strategy – in fact talent acquisition fundamentally refers to a well-defined and calculated method which identifies, attracts and brings on-board the most potent talent with an intention to proficiently meet dynamic business needs.

I have been recruiting for quite some time now and the only thing that has had me covered when meeting deadlines, joining meetings, participating in massive recruitment drives, interviewing and coordinating and eventually sealing countless deals with clients, is my telecom provider.