Recruiters operating in today’s ultra-competitive
talent markets can no longer focus on single recruiting channels. Those who are
finding the talent they need increasingly reach across multiple recruiting
avenues in attempts to sway candidates much earlier in the recruitment life
cycle.

image source: http://americanatm.com/atms-and-marketing/ 

That’s the
notion behind an “omnichannel” approach to recruitment marketing that
employ the full breadth of recruiting methods in interconnected fashion—be it
social media, job boards, pay-per-click advertising, careers websites, talent
communities and more—to source and engage a wide yet targeted group of
candidates in the pre-application phase.

Proponents
of this strategy believe that with so many organizations seeking the same
candidates, it’s essential to employ the latest marketing techniques and
technologies to reach them with meaningful messages at many stages.

An End-to-End
Approach

As changes
buffet the recruiting industry, talent acquisition professionals often find
that channels that once delivered a steady stream of quality candidates are no
longer as productive. Attracting talent requires creative marketing approaches
on multiple pathways.

“Today
more than ever, candidate perceptions are shaped by multiple touch points
across multiple recruiting channels and devices,” said Chris Brablc,
director of product marketing for SmashFly Technologies, a recruitment
marketing company in Concord, Mass. “We’re seeing more organizations
thinking through every touch point to ensure the right message and right
employer value proposition is communicated to help move those candidates to the
next step in the process.”

Those
recruiting in talent-scarce job categories have to influence candidates further
upstream, Brablc said. “Organizations that build relationships much
earlier in the candidate life cycle are the ones that are winning,” he
said. “The days of posting jobs to careers pages or job boards and waiting
for candidates to come to you with little additional recruitment marketing are
essentially over.”

An
omnichannel approach has paid dividends for Craig Fisher, marketing and
communications director in the talent acquisition function at CA Technologies
in Plano, Texas.

“Job
seekers are consumers, which means they’re now accustomed to getting real-time,
interactive and personalized information on their terms wherever they spend
time online,” Fisher said. “For employers, that requires developing
an authentic employer brand that can be deployed in an omnichannel approach.
The payoff is talent that is a better fit because they already understand your
culture and are likely to be retained longer. Each of our unique channel
approaches feeds, builds on and enhances the others. They should not exist in a
vacuum.”

Another
practitioner of the omnichannel approach is Symphony Talent, a recruitment
marketing company in New York City. Roopesh Nair, the company’s president and
CEO, says it’s important to use consumer-marketing strategies to target candidates
across multiple online channels and at all stages on their path toward
application. That includes the stages of candidate awareness, interest,
consideration, evaluation and conversion.

Being able
to access the right data to influence candidates during so-called
micro-engagements along this funnel—for example, when a potential candidate
interacts with a recruiter through a chat function on a careers site or
“likes” a recruiter’s Facebook post—can make or break the
relationship, Nair said.

“If
you’re not using technology to collect data at important touch points in this
process, you won’t know what matters to candidates at a particular stage or how
you can refine your marketing strategy if needed to influence them to move
further down the funnel,” he added.

Measuring Channel
Success

An
omnichannel approach requires precise measurement to determine how well
marketing efforts in various channels are paying off.

“We’re
seeing more organizations focus not just on time-to-fill or cost-to-fill
metrics but on measuring their performance throughout the end-to-end candidate
journey,” Brablc said. “There might be a dozen or more touch points
with candidates before they apply for a job, and you need to measure to
determine your impact at those crucial steps along the path.”

Don’t lose touch with
quality candidates. Recruiting is becoming more complex since job-seekers are
now used to receiving constant, interactive information from their time online.
Utilizing many different channels of communication ensures that you are not
only creating an early relationship with them, but also maintaining the
connection at each touch-point. For help with recruiting, talent acquisition,
or any of your HR needs, visit our website https://convergehrsolutions.com/.
We can help you reach the kind of people you want at your company. Contact us
at info@convergehrsolutions.com or 610-296-8550. 

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