Digital marketing has a lot to offer to various domains from which recruitment is no exception. “Recruitment is marketing. If you’re a recruiter nowadays and don’t see yourself as a marketer, you’re in the wrong profession.” as said by Matthew Jeffrey, Head of Global Sourcing & Employer Branding at SAP, could not be more accurate in our digital era. Manpower's recent survey revealed that 73% of employers are struggling to recruit skilled applicants. The current job market has never been so competitive due to several factors such as higher levels of education, a growing economy and rapid technological advancements which require hiring more qualified workers. Digital campaigns have proven to be a powerful tool to meet the demand of the recruiters in hiring the top talents. Here are several reasons why doing digital recruitment will be a game changer in making your hiring strategy successful, followed by advice on how to advertise for recruitment and ending with how to increase your ROI with digital campaigns.
Why is it interesting to do digital campaigns for recruitment?
First, it allows businesses to have an unprecedented reach and attract a great diversity of candidates. Digital has removed geographical barriers which increases companies’ chances to find the most qualified applicants for their vacancies. Moreover, online recruitment campaigns can make use of detailed targeting options thanks to data analytics. Targeting individuals based on their interests or using the retargeting possibilities that online campaigns offer will make your recruitment strategy even more relevant. Recruitment marketing is also a good way for a company to improve their Employer Branding by highlighting their culture and values, they have a greater probability to attract candidates that share the company’s vision and fits into the company’s identity. Lastly, online recruitment can help reach passive job seekers which are not actively searching for a new job but are still open to new opportunities.
How to manage the advertising online for your recruitment campaign?
In practice, there are several ways to advertise in recruitment but we will develop several ways that have proven to be efficient and effective for our clients.
1) SEA
Search engine advertising is a basic and easy way to advertise for your vacancies. As this advertising method is based on keyword search, you will attract individuals that are actively looking for your company or the type of vacancy you offer. Indeed, with search ads, you have the control on which keywords you would like to bid on and buy. Moreover, SEA is a cost-effective solution for advertising online as you will only pay per click and thus pay for people who have an interest in your vacancies, which limits the loss in investment. Besides, SEA now has a lot of automated bidding strategies that optimize ad performance in real time, eliminating the need for manual adjustments. These automations have significantly reduced the time spent on bidding optimization, allowing recruiters to focus on other critical tasks.
2) Pmax
Pmax is a powerful tool for recruitment marketing strategies. Thanks to advanced AI algorithms, Performance Max campaigns can better optimize the different placements, the bidding strategy and the targeting. This automatization ensures that the ads are shown to the relevant users at the right time to maximize engagement and conversions.
Moreover, Pmax has targeting options that allow you to reach the relevant persona thanks to signals you give to the algorithm about your audience. It offers a comprehensive set of targeting information that AI will use in order to determine the most qualified audience. In addition, Pmax provides some reports and insightful data to understand who your audience really is. Those insights can help companies to undermine unknown characteristics about their audience which are valuable for their business.
Finally, Performance max campaigns make use of a mix of rich media formats and allow to appear on qualitative and various placements in order to deliver visually-attractive ads to the users and can give information on which type of creatives works best.
We launched several Pmax campaigns for one of our clients per job category they’re hiring for. Thanks to these campaigns, they saw a significant increase in the number of applications for all the job categories. They also saw an increase in the quality of applicants for the positions that they consider important for their business.
3) Meta
Meta benefits from the biggest social media user base globally. Your ads can appear on the feeds of millions of potential candidates across Facebook and Instagram and ensure you safe and trusted placements. Moreover, Meta offers detailed targeting options which are very valuable if you know the profile of the candidate you are searching for. This ensures your ad reaches highly qualified individuals who are a perfect fit for your open position.
Facebook and Instagram provide creative formats that generate attention and engagement which is not always easy for job ads. In a world where attention is the new currency, engaging content is key to grab the attention of potential candidates and especially of passive job seekers which might be interested by your work environment and dynamics.
4) Linkedin
Linkedin is the biggest social networking platform worldwide and gathers users engaged in professional networking and career development. Therefore, users might be more likely to be receptive to job openings and offers and are more likely to be actively searching for a new opportunity. Thanks to this professional focus on the platform, trust and credibility in the recruitment ads is also fostered. In terms of targeting, Linkedin has a lot of specific options that allow you to target very specific skills, job functions, past experience, specific companies and more. Lastly, Linkedin helps streamlining the application process with the feature of applying in one click. This user-friendly feature leads to a higher application rate.
Why should you optimize your website to improve your ROI?
Having a good website layout is crucial in recruitment marketing to enhance the user’s experience and maximize the number of applications. Indeed, having an optimized and user-friendly website eases the process of application and you will consequently be more likely to receive more leads with a lower hiring cost. A good user experience will lower the amount of time required to record a certain amount of leads which is key in our fast-moving world.
By simplifying the application process, our client experienced a clear decrease in cost per application and thus an increased return on investment. This serves as a reminder that the success of a campaign is greatly influenced by the user experience on the company website. The Conversion Rate Optimization approach (CRO) can help you to improve your website and drive leads more efficiently. The objective of this approach is to drive potential applicants more efficiently through the funnel and ultimately have an impact on the number of applicants and thus cost per application. By identifying the bottlenecks in the customer journey, you can improve the website interface by doing some A/B testing to achieve a seamless user experience. You can find more information on CRO here.
Conclusion
In today's competitive recruitment landscape, digital marketing offers a powerful solution. By leveraging targeted online campaigns across platforms like search engines, social media, and user-friendly career websites, companies can attract a wider pool of qualified candidates, including those passively seeking new opportunities. This comprehensive digital recruitment strategy can significantly improve the quality of applicants and maximize ROI.
Shanon Lejeune
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