Why Recruiters Should Think Like Marketers

"Recruiting and marketing. Traditionally, no one has seen these two industries as having much in common. The former attempts to find the best talent to move an organization forward. The latter discipline is about attracting a specific audience to products and services. In practice, the goals are a bit different. But how are an organization’s recruiters supposed to hire the best talent unless they can somehow attract them?" (Monster)

Charming and winning top talent is becoming tougher for recruiters and employers, as they face fierce competition from rivals offering lucrative benefits and packages, not to mention candidates are becoming more selective of the culture they wish to work in.  With the amount of social platforms available (e.g. Glassdoor) we are tasked with competing against leveraged insights which means recruiters need to begin to think like marketers in order to be one step ahead of the game.

By introducing recruitment marketing into your strategy it will help you to better engage candidates, both active and passive, and nurture them until they are ready to work with you. As recruiters, we need to stand out, be different and use new or innovative channels to find our audience and make initial contact with them. In our digitally connected world, recruiters are already using some marketing methods and therefore need to develop their skill set to also think and act as such. At a minimum we also need to think like our candidates and our clients to uncover how we can understand their needs and decision making process.

Recruitment, after all is about using marketing tactics to attract, hire and retain candidates (and clients) This includes social media, content marketing, email nurturing, networking events, blogs, referrals, employer branding, data analytics and more. It’s important that we identify how these marketing tactics can reinforce recruiters as specialists and which in turn will help both candidates and clients feel confident in their dealings with them.

By thinking like a marketer we are demonstrating that we‘re informed about our market and know how to engage with relevant top talent, creating content that answers their biggest questions and fears.