Recruitment marketing is crucial to any startup’s success – and if you want to attract talented people that are qualified and diverse, it’s vital that your messaging is positioned in a strategic way. Rather than looking at finding the right individual for a particular job, your recruitment marketing efforts should attract talent in general so that there is a professional fit and cultural add.
Essentially, you’re going to build up your employer brand through various channels and mediums to make the talent want to come to you. It might sound like a lot of work — and it is — but hiring for diversity comes with some tremendous benefits. Diverse businesses have been found to capture new and broader markets, boost revenue (by almost double per employee), and experience higher innovation (which is crucial for a startup!).
If you want a full-blown walkthrough on how to attract great job candidates with recruitment marketing, this is the blog post for you. But if you already have some recruitment marketing going, keep reading for more hacks to consider.
Work the funnel🔻
With marketing, there’s a funnel or pipeline for everything; recruitment marketing is no different. We recommend familiarizing yourself with it so that your strategy has a backbone – so make sure you have these four pieces under control: awareness, interest, nurturing connections, and closing.
You can’t attract talent if they can’t find you. The first step in any marketing campaign is to create awareness. Build your brand (or maybe update it?), and look at analytics to make sure your posts are building awareness with more than just one audience.
With awareness comes interest, which will lead to talent connecting with your startup. Interest and engagement will come from posting content that has value for your intended audience and doesn’t just pump up your company (AKA team events, DEI info, culture highlights and more). Monitor metrics to see what performs best – are people reading your content consistently, liking or commenting on various social media posts, or reaching out to you directly? If not, tweak and try again.
Once a prospect has shown interest, make sure you stay in touch. Continue to sell them on your employer value and you’ll land them as the latest addition to your business. The closing stage should be prompt once you think you’ve found a winner.
Leverage your startup’s social media channels📲
Eighty-six percent of job seekers use social media during their job hunt.
People from all kinds of backgrounds engage with job-related content (as mentioned above) and use social channels to directly apply for jobs (69% of caucasian people use social media, while 77% of black people use social media and 80% of hispanic people use social media). In short, social platforms can be a powerful tool for your startup, especially when it comes to recruitment marketing. Make sure you’re using them, and using them with an aligned brand voice.
Facebook ads and messaging in specific “groups” can easily bridge gaps to new audiences. Platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Twitter help you showcase your employer brand organically, letting diverse talent see your value. Social media use can also include video campaigns, which are highly effective and memorable, and YouTube ad campaigns.
Of course, social media isn’t the only tool you’ll be using. Don’t forget about traditional recruitment strategies like posting on job boards and email marketing campaigns. Just make sure they’re designed to target a broader, more diverse audience. Think outside the box!
Manage your employer brand🤔
One important thing to prospective employees is your reputation as an employer. Besides posting fantastic content and turning your current employees into brand ambassadors, you also need to productively handle poor employer reviews on sites like Glassdoor – and actually listen when suggestions for improvement are made.
Why? According to a survey from Fractl, one-third of employees have rejected a job due to negative online reviews, and nearly 85% look at reviews before deciding if they want to apply. If you have the positive stuff down but aren’t sure where to start when handling what we’ll call “constructive criticism”, don’t worry — we’ve got some tips laid out for that, too.
Be available to chat💬
Let’s face it — most businesses only think of live chat as a tool for the consumer side of things. However, the savvy startup can also use live chat when it comes to recruitment, too. We’ve said it numerous times now, but one of the most significant complaints from talent regarding hiring is the timeline.
A lengthy process leads to a loss of interest, which means you might not hang onto that diverse talent long enough to get the close. Having a live-chat option on your careers page also lets prospective employees see you for the caring, available, and welcoming business that you are!
Don’t miss the mark on your careers page💼
While having a live-chat function on your startup’s careers page isn’t an absolute must, numerous things are. Think about it this way: a lot of the work you’ll do in your recruitment marketing strategy is designed to funnel diverse talent to your startup’s careers page. So, be deliberate with inclusive wordplay, diverse imagery when it comes to race, gender, etc., and helpful information.
Your careers page should function to organize jobs, showcase your brand, and familiarize prospects with your startup, which, according to LinkedIn, helps up your chance of receiving an application. If you drop the ball when they get there, you’re not going to see the boost in hiring the top talent you want and deserve! If you need more help, make sure you aren’t making these mistakes.
If you think your recruitment marketing strategy is on point, but you aren’t seeing the results you want, it could be time to bring in external expertise. When you’re running a startup, sometimes you just don’t have the time to get into the nitty-gritty of building an entirely new marketing strategy specific to hiring diverse talent. Feel free to delegate the task to us and hire diverse top talent ASAP!
