Recruitment strategies that work

Every applicant approaches the job search differently. Learn how to drive traffic with SEO, optimize language and work efficiently with strategic communications partners.

Every company, no matter the size, is working toward improved efficiency every day. And that means automating everything possible so your people can spend more time on things that matter and less time on re-inventing the wheel. But this noble efficiency effort can often unintentionally lead to the sterilization of certain important aspects of your business — like recruiting.

In an effort to optimize efficiency, many companies will opt to create job description templates which can be duplicated and tweaked repeatedly to suit ongoing recruitment needs. While this is strategic from an efficiency standpoint, it’s not from an SEO standpoint and can often result in job postings that blend in rather than stand out — both to search engines and to people.

For example, a job seeker searching for an hourly retail inventory position is not going to search for a position the same way a person seeking a retail management position. It’s important to use language in your job descriptions and throughout your careers site that mirrors the language your target talent uses.

The question we're trying to answer is, “What should our job posting strategy be to improve search results and make the process more customized?” The key word there is ‘strategy.’ Developing a comprehensive recruitment strategy will boost search and improve application completion rates.

What does a recruitment strategy entail?

• Building or updating an impactful careers site that is mobile friendly and showcases company values and culture using various media
• Making sure your website ATS works on mobile
• Creating a talent community
• Developing a meaningful job description and job posting copy strategy
• Doing a recruitment social media audit and developing a social recruitment strategy
• Facilitating an SEO audit and implementing an SEO strategy
• Creating a brand reputation management strategy (think Glassdoor review responses and social media community management scripts)

This may seem like a big project just to improve search results, but in today’s world, search isn’t just anything — it’s everything.

Creating a new recruitment strategy is exciting and there are several questions the members of your team can ask themselves to prepare for a partnership with an agency like ours to improve your recruitment strategy while getting the most out of your time and budget. 

10 questions to help you prep for a recruitment strategy partnership

1. Does our company currently have a recruitment strategy? If so, has your team been sticking to the plan? Make a list of what’s working and what’s not.
2. Where is your traffic coming from? Does your careers site get more traffic from search, from digital ads or from social media posts? (If you don’t know where to look for this information, don’t worry — that’s what we’re here for!)
3. Are your job postings searchable? In other words, are your job postings hosted on your site as normal webpages with live text that search engine bots can scan for language relevant to job searchers or are they hosted as pop-out pdfs? There are lots of ways job postings can live on your site and while the entire post/description itself doesn’t need to be live text, there should at least be a robust description, catered to the correct audience for each individual posting.
4. Do your job postings inspire? They don’t need to sound like a motivational speech, but research shows that today’s job seekers want meaning. Even hourly employees care about where they’re working and want to know that their employer stands for something. The more you can use information about your company’s mission and values to differentiate your job postings, the better. Learn more about writing winning job descriptions.
5. Where are your job postings posted? Aside from your careers site, what other job boards is your company using? Are you placing ads on Facebook? Using job boards like Glassdoor? Utilizing Google for Jobs?
6. What worked for current staff? Of current, happy, long-standing staff members, how did they find the job posting for their first position within your company and what made them decide to apply? What worked for them about the process and what didn’t? Your team is a treasure trove of qualitative data. Poll or interview them to find out.
7. Which keywords is your company currently ranking for on search? It’s ok if you don’t know this. We can help you figure it out. But it’s important to know which keywords your site is ranking for in search. In other words, this will help you understand which phrases job seekers use to end up at your job postings.
8. Is your careers site impactful? There is a right way and a wrong way to develop a careers site. Approach your careers site with fresh eyes (or borrow someone else’s) and navigate through to learn whether or not the user experience is easy and functional. Investing in your careers site will ultimately save you money.
9. What’s working on social media? You don’t have to be an analyst to see which kinds of posts get the most meaningful engagement (comments, shares and clicks).
10. What differentiates your company from the next? This is the most important question you’ll answer. When a job seeker asks, “How is this position here different from the same one at x company?” What will you say? Does your company’s careers site make this point of differentiation known?

What are words worth? Today, a lot. Which ones you choose, how you use them, where you put them and who you say them to. Reach out and we’ll help you put all the recruitment puzzle pieces together in a way that continues improving your team’s efficiency while boosting results.