Recruiting is so much harder now. It’s pushing recruiters to try new ways to engage talent. That’s because, with historically low unemployment, it’s a candidate-driven market. How must recruiters change their behavior to compete in this more difficult environment? 

Recruiting is Marketing. 

Recruiting has morphed into a marketing job. That’s because candidates are more careful in the jobs they choose, looking at intangibles like culture in addition to traditional offerings like pay. Marketing is pitching in to help now, fostering new trends to solicit candidates by using blogs, social media, and other marketing techniques to get the word out about jobs.  

The best recruiters today use recruitment marketing techniques to reinforce their efforts to solicit new talent. The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) quoted a marketing executive recently, who stated, “The candidate journey is influenced at every stage by marketing strategies.” Recruiters that fail to use digital and content marketing will quickly fall behind. 

Jobvite released their Recruiter Nation Survey recently. They found that investing in marketing techniques is the best way for recruiters to engage candidates. The survey showed the top channels for reaching candidates included social media, a company career website, and direct marketing and advertising. 

Recruiting is Sales. 

A candidate’s market ramps up the idea that recruiting is now a sales job. In today’s low unemployment market, recruiters must: 

  • Sell the candidate on why the job is the perfect fit. This is particularly true with the majority of your candidate pool being passive. 
  • Keep the candidate interested through the entire hiring process. This could include forcing them through a variety of hoops, from unwieldy online testing to multiple interviews. 
  • Sell the client (or employer) on the candidate, their credentials, and their cultural fit for the open role. 
  • Then, after all this is done, go back to the candidate and sell the offer of employment. 

But there are even more similarities to sales; today’s recruiter has to sell their client on how to change outdated talent acquisition practices. For large bureaucracies, this means they should assess outdated candidate application processes that included old technologies and long hiring times. The recruiter, particularly in staffing companies or other third-party relationships, must sell their client on the correct approach to hiring in a candidate-driven market. While hiring managers may have ideas about how the search should be conducted, recruiters are their best resource for bringing a cold dash of reality into outdated methodologies.  

Recruiters that work in the trenches every day must find new ways to advise clients and hiring teams on how the market has changed. Of course, they must do this in a way that shows the benefit of streamlining old school application processes. They must also convince hiring teams on how to better engage candidates during the hiring process. Recruiters must also sell the client on the best offer to make when a candidate is finally ready to come on board. 

Recruiting Has Changed. 

The days of placing a job ad and waiting for applicants are over. For today’s recruiters, the job has grown more complex and more difficult. Fortunately, there are companies like Exelare standing by to help you do the heavy lifting. Our next-gen software can tip the scales in your favor. Schedule a demo today to learn how we can help you!