Leveraging Marketing To Attract Top Talent – a DisruptHR talk by Gabriella Karge – Marketing Services Account Manager of Mathmarketing

DisruptHR Melbourne 1 – October 21, 2015 in Melbourne, Australia. #DisruptHRMelb

There is a correlation between the way “top talent” job seekers go about their search for their next role, and how businesses make complex buying decisions.

Top talent are not just looking for a job, they’re looking for a career trajectory. Sure, they want a good salary, but they also want to work in an environment where there is exceptional leadership, and to gain the skills and experience that will get them ahead of their competitors.

67% of buyers do research online before engaging a sales team. There’s no difference with top talent. Top talent also does research online before engaging with companies or starting their networking.

Selling is a team sport. It’s far more attractive to hear about a great company from someone in my network that I trust and respect, rather than a recruiter or a salesperson. Leverage your network, and give back to them as much as you feel like they’ve given to you.

Recruiters must do a great job of articulating the brand of the companies that they work for. It’s a marketer’s job to make sure that their salespeople have the collateral and the language they need to effectively sell the company’s products. Similarly, it’s your job to make sure that your recruiters have the collateral and language they’ll need to have discussions with top talent on behalf of your company.

Many companies have online videos on their Careers page, but unfortunately, most of them are all the same. They include words like “diverse”, “culture”, “great place to work”, “employer programs”, etc. It’s all the same, and those buzzwords are everywhere. We need to do a better job with that.

Do you know what the reputation is of your HR team in the market? Why does another company’s job ad on LinkedIn have more applicants than a similar ad that your company is running? It’s vital to understand your competition so you can combat that information in interviews with top talent. They’re interviewing you/your company as much as you’re interviewing them.

Three Action Steps:

– Go and talk to sales and marketing. What language are they using and what tactics are they using to attract prospects. How you can apply that to your recruitment?

– Build a third party strategy. Make sure that you know what recruiters are saying when they represent you to candidates. And make sure that your employees know how much you value their referrals.

– Write content that is attractive. Update social media. Update manager LinkedIn profiles to not only show that they work at an attractive company, but also that they’re an attractive manager for top talent to work with, to learn from and to grow their careers. Update generic videos. They may be super flashy and look pretty, but top talent needs to understand why they should come work for YOU.