If you’re a recruiting professional, your primary goal is clear: you want to place as many of your clients as possible in long-term, high-quality employment positions and maintain a strong employment pipeline between new and existing clients and companies in your network. This is easier said than done in this ultra-competitive job market, in which rapid shifts in technology, uncertain economic prospects, and changing ways of hiring and doing business are exerting added pressure on an increasingly strained hiring environment. On top of this, the number of competing staffing companies is growing, and they’re all eager to get a piece of the hiring pie. So what’s a staffing professional supposed to do in order to hit their performance targets in such a harsh employment climate?

The old guard will feel their levels of stress and anxiety rise in the face of growing pressure, get nervous, and double down on traditional placement strategies in a desperate attempt to stay relevant and get results. Bad move! In an increasingly digital world where grabbing the attention of job seekers and companies and standing out from the overwhelming noise of the competition is trickier than ever before, those old dusty strategies simply don’t work anymore—and those who still cling to them shouldn’t be surprised when they discover that they aren’t moving the needle in the right direction. On the other hand, the new guard takes a different approach and utilizes cutting-edge strategies—everything from emerging AI software to innovative performance analytics and increasingly sophisticated digital staffing tools—to cut through the competition and nail their target performance metrics. 

The question is—which type of staffing professional are you? Whether you’re a part of the new guard or simply want to be, it isn’t difficult to realize that those who fail to stay relevant and take advantage of the new tools of modern staffing will get left behind.

Recruitment marketing is the go-to tactic all the pros are embracing to get the job done. It’s a tool businesses have employed to help attract, engage, recruit, and retain key talent to their organizations, and staffing companies have started waking up to its potential for improving their hiring prospects. Recruitment marketing in staffing is similar to product marketing, except it’s targeted at promoting a company’s brand in an effort to drive both active and passive candidates into their employment pipelines for current and future positions. It utilizes core marketing strategies to enhance awareness of a company, generate interest and enthusiasm in its mission, encourage and foster that interest, and ultimately drive your target audience to take action—namely, to try and get on board.

As a staffing professional, here’s how you can harness the power of recruitment marketing to improve your hiring efforts.

Have A Plan

Does your staffing company take a scattershot approach to recruiting, or is there a clear method behind the daily madness? Is there an overriding, unifying mission to your operation, or is it more of a disjointed and disconnected process that says nothing about who your company is, what it stands for, or what makes you unique?

By having a clearly defined plan at the onset of your operations (a mission-critical initial step in recruitment marketing), you’ll be able to identify your brand and value proposition, which will also help you forge a strategy to attract your target audience—namely new hiring prospects and companies that are eager to do business with you whenever they have staffing needs.  Having a clear plan will also help your staffing company operate more effectively and efficiently, so consider this step a double win for your business.

Consider Specializing

If your company is trying to be a one-size-fits-all blanket solution for all things staffing, you may not be communicating real brand value to your audience—and that could negatively impact your ability to attract the attention of new and existing clients. Recruitment marketing in staffing is all about building and communicating an engaging brand, and what better brand can a business and job seekers who are looking for a staffing company be attracted to than one that specializes in their field? Consider specializing in staffing for a specific industry to become the expert in that sector, and you’ll be in a great position to effectively market your brand value to the world.

Build Awareness

Once you have a plan and begin building a brand that supports your clearly defined mission, use today’s digital media tools to let the world know all about your staffing company and what it offers. Share your successes, ideas, and industry insights, and build a reputation as the “go-to” team to reach out to when staffing needs arise. Learn from your marketing successes and failures, pay close attention to what the competition is up to, retool and innovate as needed, and never get complacent in your efforts—it’s simply too important.

Don’t forget—when it comes to staffing, today’s competition is more intense than ever before, and the companies that rise above the noise, get noticed, and grab people’s attention are the ones that use the core fundamentals of marketing and today’s recruitment marketing tools effectively. Good luck!