Given the competitive hiring market, employers today need to put extra effort into ensuring their recruitment efforts are successful. And one of the most effective ways you can improve recruitment and hiring results at your organization is by leveraging actionable data.
Your team likely continuously tracks which advertising and other lead sources drive new business. You should take a similar approach to hiring quality people, as employees are any organization’s main source of competitive advantage. Just as you would invest in several lead sources to bring in new business, it’s important to have a multichannel approach to recruitment marketing and ensure you’re only investing in applicant channels that drive results.
Below, we’ve outlined how your team can implement an effective, multichannel recruitment marketing strategy – and tap into data to improve the overall success of your recruitment efforts.
Maintain Strong Employer Brand and Career Site
Even at a time of low unemployment – the lowest rate in more than 50 years – the majority of employees always keep their eyes peeled for new job opportunities. But as most job seekers are already employed, prospective job applicants can be more selective than ever before when considering new roles.
In today’s highly competitive applicant-driven economy, your organization needs to sell quality talent on the opportunity working for your team presents. This goes above and beyond simply salary, as top talent today demands much more than simply an exchange of time for money. What your team needs is a compelling answer to the “What’s in it for me?” question. This can be made possible through a strong employer brand and career site.
To get job seekers excited to join your team, develop a strong employer brand that encourages job seekers to build long-term careers with your team. Your employer brand should include strong, SEO-friendly job descriptions, a compelling career site, defined career paths across departments, employee testimonials, a comprehensive list of benefits and continuous job openings.
A well-built career site is often the top source for quality candidates. While only four percent of job applicants apply to roles via career sites, Hireology data found that 80 percent of carer site applicants are considered quality and 30 percent of hires are made from career sites – more than any other applicant channels. Top candidates turn to career sites rather than simply clicking “apply” through job boards, as they’re engaged and want to learn more about career opportunities before officially applying. And beyond helping you attract engaged applicants, a strong career site can help your team save money – Hireology found that career sites are seven times more cost-effective than job boards.
Diversify Your Recruitment Marketing Channels
Many employers don’t have a defined recruitment marketing strategy in place and make the mistake of investing significantly in only one or two recruitment marketing channels – such as a one-off job board posting each time a role opens. But in some cases, job boards drive a high quantity but low quality of applicants, and employers have limited visibility into which job boards drive the most quality applicants and eventual hires. And as your team receives job applicants who aren’t a fit for your open roles, you’ll waste time weeding through these applicants that could have otherwise been spent on more worthwhile tasks.
Instead of investing in only one or two applicant channels, Hireology data found that a multichannel recruitment marketing strategy can help drive five times more quality applicants. Beyond purchasing one-off job board postings each time you have open roles, you should invest in a variety of job boards – including national, local and niche, industry-specific job boards – and expand your strategy beyond job boards with such channels as your career site and targeted ads.
Targeted ads enables your team to attract quality applicants at scale. Hireology’s targeted solution, Applicant Engine, delivers quality candidates automatically and directly to your team. Using Applicant Engine, your team can reach qualified candidates across a network of 500+ local, national, social and organic channels. And Hireology manages your recruitment marketing budget for you, ensuring you’re only investing your time and money in channels that drive results.
Measure the Success of Your Recruitment Marketing Efforts
Once you have a multichannel recruitment marketing strategy in place, you should also have a process to measure the results of each applicant channel. To measure the success of your hiring efforts, take a look at your applicant funnel – applicant, quality applicant and hire – and the cost per hire across each channel and job type. If certain channels aren’t driving hires or the cost per hire is significant, you should eliminate these channels from your recruitment marketing strategy – and only invest in recruitment marketing channels that drive results.
Instead of manually measuring which applicant channels drive results, you can save time by partnering with a recruitment CRM platform like Hireology. Insights, Hireology’s analytics platform, helps you save time and drive hiring results by measuring the success of your recruitment marketing and hiring efforts. Two of Hireology’s Insights focus specifically on ROI from your recruitment marketing channels. One answers the question, “What is my best source of applicants?” while another insight measures the ROI driven by your career site.
Hireology’s sourcing Insight offer centralized visibility into sponsored job board performance, including total sponsored posts purchased, dollars spent, quality applicants sourced, and average cost per quality applicant. And the career site ROI Insight includes data about career site performance, including subscription cost, number of applicants, number of quality applicants and cost per quality applicant.
Using Hireology’s Insights, you can eliminate recruitment marketing channels that don’t drive results, helping you be more strategic about your spending. And by diversifying your recruitment marketing channels – rather than only buying job board postings with unknown ROI as the need arises – you can drive more quality candidates to your open roles.
A more effective recruitment marketing strategy will ultimately help you secure your next great employee sooner – such as a technician at your dealership or caregiver at your home health care agency. Does your recruitment marketing strategy have room for improvement? Get your free assessment today.
