5 steps to building a successful recruitment marketing plan

Recruitment marketing is essential for getting people – job hunters, passive candidates, recruiting firms – to see your open positions. The more eyes you get on your job posts, the more likely you are to fill those roles with highly qualified candidates. In order to market effectively, you need to develop a plan of attack to reach your goals.

In this article we’ll break down the 5 key steps to focus on when building your recruitment marketing plan.

1. Define your ideal candidate

It’s impossible to create an effective recruitment marketing plan if you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for. And once you’ve defined your ideal candidate search – for each available role – you can tailor your messaging to appeal to them directly.

Creating a successful candidate search means coming up with a list of attributes that your ideal candidate would have. These can include their current role, career goals, stage relevance, core values, intangible qualities, experience level, etc.

This prep work on your candidate search can also help you tailor your applicants’ experience online. When designing your applications, you’ll want to envision the experience from the candidates’ perspective. Make sure that the messaging and flow of the application process aligns with the values of your ideal candidates as part of your overall sourcing and outreach strategy.

2. Set goals for your recruitment marketing plan

Before putting the wheels in motion, sit down with your team to discuss what you want to achieve with your marketing strategy for recruiting. Big picture, the goal is always to attract high-quality candidates to your company, but it’s important to specifically orient your goals around the marketing plan itself.

The key here is to focus on creating precise goals that you can measure. Here are a few examples:

• Attract X number of job applicants to each open position
• Increase employee referral rates by X%
• Increase the number of applicants with diverse backgrounds by X%
• Increase engagement on social media by X%
  

The more specific you are, the easier it is to track your progress and see if your approach is working.

3. Define your recruitment marketing budget

No marketing plan – recruitment or otherwise – can be effective without funding. When you consider how valuable top-tier employees are for a company’s longevity, it’s clear that investing in a marketing budget is key.

That said, no company has infinite resources to pour into a recruitment marketing plan, so it’s important to know what it will cost to onboard top-tier talent for your open roles.

Once you know the average cost per hire, you can extrapolate that out based on how many roles you need to fill and use that as a benchmark for your budget.

4. Develop your employee value proposition

An employee value proposition (EVP) is your chance to showcase your company to the world. In short, its function is to outline why a candidate would want to work at your company. It’s a way for you to distill down all the key benefits of your company including growth opportunities, employment benefits, work culture, and more.

It’s important to thoroughly research competitors and industry peers so you know exactly what makes your company stand out from the crowd. That research will also make you aware of what other companies are doing to attract talent and you can adjust your plan accordingly.

While salary is often one of the most important criteria for candidates, there are many factors that play into a candidate’s decision to work with a company. Everything from compensation to maternity/paternity leave is on the table. So the more comprehensive you make your EVP, the more attractive your company will be.

5. Outline your recruitment marketing content

There are many ways to recruit talent in the digital age. LinkedIn outreach, social media, email marketing, job fairs, referrals… the list goes on. But, no matter which avenue fits your company best, you’ll need effective content to attract the right candidates to your open positions.

All of your content should reflect the EVP that you developed in the previous step. Think about content from a candidate perspective – what do they need to see to keep moving through the application process?

Take a look at these content tips in this article about building a successful employer brand. Blog posts, marketing videos, webinars, employee testimonials, social media posts, and podcasting are all fantastic avenues to publish content and start increasing engagement from interested candidates. Whatever you decide, make sure your content aligns with your targeted candidate personas and remains true to the core ethos of your company.

Wrapping up your marketing plan

A comprehensive recruitment marketing plan is key for staying on track and ensuring that you hit all your recruitment goals. Be sure to invest the time and resources required to bring your plan to fruition. Once you’ve developed an effective plan, it’s much easier to implement for future hiring initiatives down the line.

Overall, a recruitment marketing plan will improve the way your company is perceived, increase your talent pool, and streamline your hiring process.