NeonLogicYour pipeline is empty. Your careers site is updated and ready to go. Perhaps you even have a shiny new Employer Brand. It’s time to get cracking on some recruitment marketing, right? Not so fast.
Before rushing out to market, it’s advisable to take stock, think, and implement a thoroughly researched, well-thought-out and structured Talent Attraction Strategy to support your recruitment needs and ultimately succeed in your organisational goals.
Here at NeonLogic, we follow our proven Bright Thinking methodology; Discover via research and insights, Think through strategic and creative solutions, Produce by implementation and delivery, and finally Analyse and evaluate successes (and things to work on!) to inform re-deployment.
It’s a methodology that has enabled us to support and guide numerous clients through their journey to creating and implementing their own bespoke Talent Acquisition Strategy.
Do I really need a Talent Attraction Strategy?
Ultimately, your recruitment goals almost always benefit from underpinning advertising activity with a strategic framework to inform decision making. Allowing you to connect better with various audiences, develop punchy campaign concepts, and deliver creative and messaging specifically tailored to each of these audiences and their needs, and then advertise to them in the right place, at the right time.
A Talent Attraction Strategy framework defines how your Employer Brand connects to its audiences across a landscape of paid, owned and earned assets. It seeks to determine what your organisation should say, whom you should say it to, and what exactly should be said not just about your job opportunities, but about your values, your benefits, and your culture.
Understanding Audiences
Interrogating audience data and understanding audiences is critical in learning whom we are talking to, what we need to say, and where we need to say it. Knowing your candidate is perhaps the most important component of modern recruitment marketing. We want to know who they are, where they are, what drives them, what are their concerns and doubts, and most importantly – what do they need from you? If you don’t truly know and understand your candidate and their key influencers, be they colleagues or friends and whānau, how can you best speak to them and provide them the information they need to choose your organisation as the place where their career can flourish?
Goals and Message
At the early strategy stages, a key output is defining the objectives and proposition. Understanding what we are trying to achieve for marketing informs tactical and strategic decisions. We work with our clients to define a clear set of objectives and rationale to support long-term business goals. Building a clear proposition gives creative purpose and direction, ensuring we are using the right message to connect with your prospective candidates.
Getting Strategic/Thinking Through Solutions
Our Think stage is where the magic really starts happening, defining core messaging to inform creative, mapping the audience’s needs to understand which steps along the journey resonate best with different Talent groups. Then determining how and where each key marketing asset should be used for maximum impact, from above the line advertising and promotion to inbound marketing channels for a deeper connection to your talent pool.
Analysing Success
Strategically-minded Talent Acquisition leaders have known for a long time that getting the right people for the job is about so much more than simply ‘post and pray.’ Analysing the efficacy of your Talent Acquisition Strategy, and remaining boldly open-minded to acknowledging what hasn’t worked so well in addition to celebrating successes, is key to effective re-deployment and continuous improvement.
Through a combination of tools, such as A/B testing your creative, properly set-up Google Analytics, or even a reporting dashboard customized to your goals, data and analysis is essential to continue optimizing your Talent Attraction Strategy over time, further honing your messaging, and reallocating budget to the media channels which work best for your specific organization and audience. Your stakeholders will thank you for your increased ability to track recruitment goals against business KPIs, and your hiring managers will thank you for delivering more quality applicants to interview!
So not so fast on launching that ‘quick win’ advertising campaign! If you’re ready to take your talent acquisition marketing to the next level by developing a well-researched and considered Talent Attraction Strategy, get in touch or check out our Case Studies for successful Talent Attraction Strategy examples.
Our team is committed to achieving success for our clients, by working together to create an innovative and comprehensive strategy, bespoke to your specific goals. We look forward to sharing our ‘bright thinking’ with you!
