Improve Hiring with Content Marketing

Catherine Miklaus

According to recent studies, many hiring managers are finding it increasingly difficult to hire new employees in comparison to only six months ago. In response, many hiring managers and recruiting teams have adjusted the way in which they hire candidates. Now, hiring teams have active discussions about their employer brand.  But now that you’re paying attention to how your company is perceived online, how do you apply that to the candidate experience?  What kinds of tools can you use to actually elevate your candidate experience?  Whether your hiring team consists of 2 people or 100, you too can benefit from the addition of content marketing to your hiring process.  Your team can improve hiring and remain competitive with these simple steps.

Be the Hero and Improve Hiring

The beauty of content marketing is it’s a relatively simple fix to enhance your candidate experience.  As a hiring manager, you’re the living breathing representative of the company.  You’re living the brand and communicating it to candidates on a regular basis.  But you could also communicate these before ever speaking to a candidate.  Content marketing could be as easy as writing a blog post, sharing pictures, or filming a video.  Using these tools, your team is able to provide the transparency and information that candidates crave.  We’ve long pointed to the trends towards transparency of information as a part of the candidate’s overall evaluation of a company.  So here’s how you can apply content marketing to your recruiting and improve hiring today.

• Include links to your content on job postings. Here’s a novel idea; instead of posting blind job postings, name your company. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come across job postings on sites like Indeed, Monster, or Craigslist that say Company Confidential.  Why would I want to apply to a job with an organization not willing to give up any details about themselves?   If candidate experience means more to your company than the latest buzz word, it’s important to make some changes.  It’s time to talk about your employee brand.  And most importantly, link to your content.  Does your careers page list a posting on your company culture? Link to it in the job posting.  The benefits of including this kind of information is you attract a higher quality of candidate.  Your company is able to improve hiring by allowing the applicants to decide whether they would fit in with your company culture.  Every employer says they have a great culture.  But now you have an opportunity to show a candidate what that entails.  Do you do weekly bbq’s out in the parking lot? Is your team at work late into the evening hours? Do you host movie nights for your employees and their families?  By sharing this kind of insight, you are better able to improve hiring and communicate with candidates.
  
• Share company pictures.  Your company has a social media channel.  But is it boring and dry or does it include photos of the people that make your company great?  Do you show them hard at work and at play?  Many candidates seek out employer social media channels if there’s a lack of quality company information on their website.  This is a fun way to show off your team and to help candidates visualize themselves at your company.  If a picture speaks a thousand words, what does it say about your company?  It’s time to take some pictures that sell your employer brand.  Think like a marketer and take some pictures that you can use to improve hiring.  This could include team bonding lunches, pictures of a casual day at work, or attendance at industry events.  As part of the recruiting process, your careers page could highlight some of these choice photos to further speak to candidates in a more dynamic way.
  
• Embed video in your careers page. It’s no secret that video is the most popular media on the internet.  It ranks higher in search engine results, attracts more attention and communicates more effectively than text or pictures alone.  If you’re not yet using video, you could be missing out on a great way to improve hiring.  As video interview software producers, video has a soft spot in our hearts.  Our clients use video greetings in their video interview platforms.  But video is also appropriate on careers pages, linked within job postings, posted in social media channels, and more.  Video is a great tool to show candidates what your team is like, the work environment, and who they may be interacting with when candidates come in for an interview.  There’s also a high potential that this could get shared and reshared by candidates.  Your video could go viral and produce hundreds more interested candidates than you previously imagined.

Content marketing isn’t very scary when you break it down into simple tasks.  You’re proud of your company and now you can show candidates that pride by giving them a glimpse inside your company.  Candidates who view employers’ content marketing typically come better prepared to interviews and possess more enthusiasm for the company than their counterparts.  If candidate experience is a priority for your team this year, take it one step further and generate some content to get them excited.

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