Inbound Recruiting: How do you attract top talent?

Inbound recruiting is a method that uses digital marketing strategies to engage targeted groups of passive and active candidates at various stages of the recruitment process. It combines elements of employer branding and recruitment marketing to attract and convert candidates.

Inbound Recruiting vs. Inbound Marketing

It seems hard to believe that there was a time when looking for a job meant reading a newspaper and going to the company to fill out a form. Undeniably, the Internet has made these processes obsolete.

As with e-commerce, business software, or most other markets requiring a transaction, data and access to information have made life much easier for decision makers. For its part, the job market is no exception.

Thus, recruiters are beginning to consider certain elements such as their career space, social networks and Google as their major assets. Naturally, this is making them think more and more like digital marketers. To the point that a new recruitment technique has emerged. It's about “inbound recruiting”.

Some talent recruiters are still at the beginning of the experimental phases of developing an inbound recruiting strategy. Most of them don't even have one.

The parallels between recruitment and inbound marketing make it possible to attract, cultivate, and convert talent. This cannot be ignored in these decidedly digital and mobile times.

The candidate journey and the customer journey

The “customer journey” is the concept of a person going from unknown to customer by explaining everything that is needed to get there. Talent acquisition work also involves turning foreigners into candidates and then into recruits.

The fact that the Internet is now the foundation of the candidate journey is what makes this connection between inbound recruiting and inbound marketing worth exploring.

The average candidate uses at least 16 different resources during their job search.

Does that sound familiar?

The Inbound Recruiting Funnel

More and more businesses are starting to use inbound recruiting strategies. For example, with approaches like creating employer brand content. Or even investing in social recruitment. This process is made possible if businesses make sure everything is mobile-friendly and try to get the most out of search engine optimization.

Right now, 73% of candidates start their job search on Google. Regardless of where their research comes from, the aim is not only to be where candidates may be ready to look at new career opportunities. But it's also about having a recruitment engine that integrates them into a career space organically.

There is a war for talent going on, and businesses are competing based on their ability to get quality candidates through this funnel.

Here are some of our favorite Inbound Recruiting resources:

• Career space : Career spaces have become the source of information for modern candidates and, at the same time, businesses have a major opportunity to generate more traffic.
  
• Employer brand content : we may be considering a new era of writing that coincides with the rise of employer branding as a business discipline: this content aimed at creating a “big picture” of why your business is a great place to work is a major factor in effective inbound recruiting strategies.
  
• Social recruitment : the use of social media as a recruitment tool is essential. A strategy designed to raise awareness and promote social engagement contributes significantly to talent acquisition efforts.
  Further down the recruitment funnel, recruiting through social networks. The latter can help build relationships between recruiters and candidates over time. This is especially important for passive candidates.
  
• CPC support : campaigns and other forms of advertising amplify inbound recruiting and social content channels.
  
• Mobile recruitment : Uber, Seamless, and other consumer-oriented companies that simplify daily life have focused on employers. Thus making mobile recruitment solutions indispensable from now on.
  

Activating inbound recruiting strategies may require a complete “replacement” of your ATS with something less intrusive and more intuitive, such as integrating an outsourced career space using a simple URL.

Think Transformation, not Transaction

To conclude, call inbound recruiting, HR marketing or any other term, whatever. Finally, the key point of this article is that the behaviors and expectations of candidates have changed considerably in recent years. Now, the candidate's journey takes place mainly online. Your recruitment strategy must therefore adapt.

Inbound recruiting strategies enable transformation. The long-term benefits? Candidates recognize your employer brand. This means less pressure on recruiters and less costs per candidate and therefore per contract.

However, we are not saying that it will be easy. First, start the conversation with your team today about how you can leverage web and mobile. Then, identify an area that you think your team can have an impact on and get started!

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