Inside this checklist, you’ll find more than 70 questions to help you evaluate how well your company is managing the five key areas of a solid recruiting strategy.
While creating a solid recruiting strategy won’t require marking “Yes” to every question for every recruiter, this checklist will provide helpful insight into how you can build a better-recruiting strategy.
For ease and convenience, you can download a printable copy of this checklist below, or simply keep reading and write your answers down.
Strategy:
A well-developed recruitment marketing strategy will allow you to concentrate your resources on the greatest opportunities to increase candidate leads and achieve a sustainable competitive recruiting advantage.
Advertising:
Advertising is key to getting your job openings in front of candidates. In order to maintain a budget and a consistent ROI on your recruitment marketing efforts, you’ll need a plan in place.
Employer Branding:
Employer Branding is the story you tell that shows potential employees what working for your company could be like. It is an integral part of drawing qualified candidates to you as an employer of choice.
Messaging Campaigns:
Text Recruiting leverages SMS text, email, Facebook Messenger, or WhatsApp to communicate and maintain contact with job candidates before, during, and after the hiring process.
Job Fairs:
Job fairs, virtual or in-person give employers access to a larger pool of candidates increasing the number of qualified resumes and applications for the positions they need to fill.
Devising a Recruitment Marketing Strategy, Where to Start
In the modern talent acquisition industry, candidates shop for jobs in much the way a customer shops for products. With that in mind, when devising your recruitment marketing strategy, you’ll want to start with the 4Cs of Recruitment Marketing.
Candidate Convenience
In this case, we are talking about how convenient it is for a candidate to apply for an open position. An average of 60% of job seekers abandon online job applications because of their length or complexity.
Competition
Your recruitment marketing success hinges on your ability to separate your brand from your competitors. In plain terms, you need to know what the competition offers its candidates in order to highlight ways in which your offering may be a better choice.
Consistency
Maintaining a consistent employer brand across all recruitment marketing efforts from career sites and landing pages to marketing materials and social media accounts is essential in building a reputable employer identity.
Communication
In a candidate-driven market communication can often be the difference between winning or losing top talent. By far the most common reason job seekers report having a negative candidate experience is that employers simply don’t bother to respond to them. 75% of applicants never hear back from an employer after applying for a job, and 60% never hear back after an interview.
Strategy
Candidate Convenience
- Do you have a career site or at least a career page on your corporate website?
- Is the career site or page easy to find in your website navigation?
- Is the design responsive, so people can search for jobs and apply on any device?
- Can candidates easily fill out a short-form application on your website or career page?
- Do you offer one-click apply options?
- Can job seekers opt-in for job alerts?
- If so, do you have a system in place to automatically send them out?
- Can prospective candidates find your career opportunities and recruitment-related content on:
- TikTok
- Youtube
Competition
- Do you know who your number one local competitor is, or the company most likely to poach your staff?
- Do you know who your top ten industry competitors are?
- Do you know what your top competitor’s EVP (Employer Value Proposition) is?
- Have you researched your top competitor’s websites (Career Page, Team Page, About Us, Testimonials)?
- Are you familiar with their social media accounts (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram)?
- Do you know what content formats they rely on most (videos, articles, posts, etc.)?
- Have you checked your competitor’s employer review ratings?
Consistency
- Are your logo and brand colors up to date and consistent across all candidate touchpoints?
- Is your brand messaging consistent and up to date across all candidate touchpoints?
- When jobs are shared on social media, do you have a way to add branded visual cards to maintain employer identity?
- Is your EVP integrated into your website and recruiting-focused marketing collateral?
- Is your EVP incorporated into every job post?
Communication
- Are all the jobs posted on your career site or page and social channels updated and current?
- Are your job titles and descriptions realistic and clear?
- Do you provide applicants with a clear roadmap of the selection process?
- Do you communicate regularly with your talent pool to nurture passive candidates?
- Do you have a policy in place for following up with candidates after an application is received?
- Do you have a policy in place for following up after candidate interviews?
- Do you provide opportunities for candidates to give feedback on their experience?
Advertising
Your Social Media Presence:
- Do you have a Facebook career Page or at least a Facebook Business page?
- Do you have a company presence on at least one other social platform such as Instagram, TikTok, Youtube, or LinkedIn?
- Does your career site encourage job seekers to follow you on social media?
- Are all of your recruiters well versed on how to create social profiles that will improve their sourcing efforts?
- Do you know what tools to use to source candidates on the various social platforms?
- Do you know how to use hashtags and chats to source candidates on social?
- Do you regularly post new job openings on your social media accounts?
- Can your jobs be easily shared on social media?
- Better yet, can your social job sharing be automated?
- Do your recruiters share jobs on social media through their personal social media accounts?
Social Job Sharing:
- Do you have a paid advertising budget for social job advertising?
- Do you post all your jobs to your social media accounts?
- Are you using the social channels that best align with your target talent pool?
- Do you A/B test different job titles and job descriptions to see what performs best?
- Do you A/B test different calls to action to see what performs best?
- Do you use imagery and messaging designed to engage passive job seekers?
- Do you encourage job seekers to follow your company on your social networks?
- Are you using retargeting and matched audiences to re-engage past visitors to your website and candidates already in your ATS?
Employer Branding
Your Brand Identity:
- Do you have a clearly defined EVP (Employee Value Proposition)?
- Do you regularly gather feedback from your employees to ensure their perception matches your EVP?
- Are you active in building your employment brand online and offline?
- Do you monitor Glassdoor, Indeed reviews, and Indeed forums?
- Do you address both positive and negative reviews professionally?
- Do you know how to obtain company reviews?
- Does your company have guidelines in place for social media interaction?
- Do you actively show off your company culture on social media with photos and videos?
- Do you use positive reviews as testimonials or in your recruiting collateral?
- Do you share positive employee testimonials on social media?
- Do you have a program in place to encourage employees to referer friends and family for open positions?
Messaging Campaigns:
- Do you have a candidate messaging strategy in place to improve candidate engagement?
- On your website or social media, can job seekers opt-in to be alerted of new job postings?
- Do you have a system in place to automatically send out job alerts via SMS, Email, Messenger, or WhatsApp?
- Do you have a process in place to ensure the re-engagement of candidates that already exist in your ATS?
- Do you have an official Messaging Etiquette Policy in place to ensure recruiters engage potential candidates in a professional manner?
- Do you use messaging to conduct basic for, like location, availability, and job qualifications?
- Do you use messaging to schedule interviews and candidate appointments?
Virtual Job Fair Strategy
- Do you have a strategy in place for running virtual job fairs?
- Do you have a partnership with a dedicated virtual job fair platform in place?
- Do you have a realistic job fair budget outlined?
- Do you have a strategy for marketing virtual job fairs?
- Have you created a set of brand guidelines for the creation and development of your virtual career fair booth?
- Have you created a dedicated list of interview questions for virtual job fair attendees?
- Have you developed a virtual job fair ‘elevator pitch’ that showcases your EVP?
- Have you created a compelling Employer Profile to attract candidates to your virtual booth?
- Do you have a system in place for following up and engaging with attendees after the job fair?
- Do you have a system in place for current employees to refer family and friends to upcoming virtual job fairs?
How Did You Rank?
If most of your responses were a “YES,” congratulations, you are on your way to meeting your recruiting goals! But if you found a lot of “NO” responses, your recruitment marketing strategy might need a little fine-tuning.
That’s Where We Come In
For more than 10 years, Work4 has partnered with some of the biggest names in the industry. From Google and Facebook to Bullhorn and iCims, our mission is to help you grow your teams, reduce time to fill, and lower the cost per hire. With Work4, when it comes to driving leads and enhancing recruiting, we offer a variety of customizable, proven solutions including:
- Multi-Platform Social Job Sharing
- Optimized Job Ads
- Employer Branding and Advocacy
- Messaging Campaigns
- Virtual Job Fairs
Ready to get started? Contact us Today!
