Marketing 101 for Recruiters, Part 2: Know Your Audience
Simply Hired Staff
Recruiting and marketing are two distinct parts of an organization, and rarely do workers cross from one field into another, but the departments have some key traits in common. In fact, when it comes to recruiting, there are many benefits you can reap when you put on your marketer hat. In the coming weeks, we will discuss how adopting five tried and tested marketing techniques can lead to lower cost per application, higher quality candidates, and better overall performance of your recruiting campaign.
In Rule No. 1 we covered the use of multiple channels to get your message out to the jobseeker audience. The next rule is knowing your audience and remembering to speak their language.
For marketers, understanding audience is essential. It is why, according to CASRO (Council of American Survey Research Organization), spending on marketing research in the United States reached $6.7 billion in 2013. Advertising and messaging must be on target in order to get a proper response. If it looks like you don’t know your audience and speak a different language than they’re accustomed to, you’ll be wasting your time and money.
For the professional job marketer this starts with job posting copy. Different people have varying methods for developing copy. From a marketer’s perspective, here’s some advice.
Do not rely solely on the hiring manager for the skills and attributes needed for the job description. Marketers like to attract more of the best customers to their product. Solicit feedback from the people you want to attract more of—your current superstar employees. They will be able to provide the right language needed to attract quality candidates. If they use language to describe their role, and you want to attract more people like them, take their guidance and speak their language.
Incorporate your brand and company values into your job posting. Paint a picture of what it’s like to work at your company and the cultural fit you expect from a quality candidate. However, don’t get carried away.
Remember the attributes your audience will be searching for. With a greater portion of candidates finding you through job search engines such as Simply Hired, the right keywords are important. You don’t want a candidate who applied to your job because they searched for “cool workspace with free lunches.” Focus on the right search terms being entered by the quality jobseeker and aligning them to your job posting copy.
