How to Attract Top Talent With HR Marketing
You are probably familiar with the basic rule of marketing: offer your potential customers a product or service that meets their needs by adapting to market expectations, not the other way around. Why not do the same with your employees? They have needs too! In the context of today's labour shortage, it goes without saying that you should meet their needs to attract and retain job seekers.
HR Marketing: Your Ally of Choice in Recruitment
As you can see, this approach, which relies on your employer brand to attract the best candidates, is based on the following idea: consider your current and potential employees as customers by creating a distinctive and, above all, authentic employer brand. This external projection of a strong employer image should ideally be accompanied by an internal value proposition aimed at building loyalty among your employees thus making them true ambassadors.
Develop an Employer Brand That Reflects Your Image
Your employer brand must capitalize on an image that highlights your strengths and differences to attract the right talent. Do you offer flexible hours or the possibility of working from home? Are teambuilding activities part of your culture? Do you have employee wellness initiatives in place? Do you allow regular screen breaks to combat fatigue?
Whatever your answers may be, the importance is that they reflect your company’s reality and, most importantly, that they correspond to what your team is looking for. Of course, you could be inspired by the many companies that woo candidates with all-you-can-eat meals, a foosball table for creative office breaks or a gym membership. Ask yourself this: is that really what matters to them the most? Maybe they are looking for more flexibility, better work-life balance or mentoring for faster career growth? The only way to find out is to ask.
Communicating to Engage: The Essential Steps of HR Marketing
Implementing an HR marketing strategy may seem complex at first, but with the right methodology, everything is simpler. This methodology includes four steps: advertising, promotion, integration and loyalty
How to Implement HR Marketing in Your Company
1. Conduct a competitive scan and analyze your current situation
The idea is to establish your profile by listing what is said about your company and what has already been done (ex: policies, projects). For an optimal exercise, clearly identify the strengths to capitalize on and the weaknesses to work on. Looking at what the competition is doing can also inspire you and help guide your next offensive play.
2. Set the stage before implementing any initiative
Start by determining the budget and resources allocated to the project. At this point, you should also define objectives and timelines to have a clear view of the project's progress. Finally, designate a team that will manage all operations, including monitoring and evaluating the impact of what has been achieved.
3. Identify your priority targets
In marketing, HR or not, it is important to understand that you cannot address everyone in the same way. Keeping this in mind, as in advertising, establish typical profiles of candidates, employees, and ambassadors. These profiles will act as personas in the development of your strategies. Likewise, think about the channels used: not all are suitable for all audiences.
4. Create an action plan with the measures to be put in place
One of the strengths of an employer brand is its ability to attract the right talent through truthful, relevant and engaging content. Whether it's through stories on social media, advertising campaigns, a promoter and internal ambassador program, newsletters, webinars or podcasts, there are 1001 ways to show the behind-the-scenes of your organization and how great it is to work with you.
5. Measure the impact of your strategy with regular follow-ups
Often overlooked, the evaluation step is nonetheless necessary. In fact, an evaluation of the performance of your actions not only allows you to measure their impact on your target audiences but also to readjust, if necessary, and maximize the benefits. Surveying your employees on what they appreciate most about working for your company is an excellent first step.
In the end, HR marketing is based on very simple facts. A word to remember is adaptation. Listen to the market to best meet its expectations. Your strategy will be that much more successful!
