4 reasons why your recruitment agency needs to be marketing itself online

We get it: It’s not easy to be a staffing or recruitment agency, marketing your business in today’s ultra-competitive jobs landscape. Attracting the right candidates – and selling your role over one of the hundreds of others out there – is easier said than done. 

Marketing your recruitment firm isn’t about popping your vacancies on a website and hoping for the best. To make a killing as a recruiter, we all know that more roles filled = better commission for you. So why wouldn't you want to attract the best candidates? You need to be proactively promoting your business online with a marketing strategy that will give qualified candidates a reason to stop and listen, position your firm as leaders in your chosen field, and make sure all the best and biggest businesses come to you to help them attract the best talent.

Why? Here are a few reasons.

You can’t reach talent in a vacuum

Around 72.8% of recruiters surveyed in 2018 said that they struggle to find the right talent. Due to time constraints, you might find yourself picking the best person at the time rather than the dream candidate – but with an online marketing strategy, you’ll maximise your chances of resonating with the right person.

Jobseekers (whether intentional or unintentional) are all online

Obviously, the internet is the first port of call for today’s jobseeker – but where are they going? According to StandOut CV, around 92% look at a company’s own website, while 64% look at job boards. When candidates often tend to go direct, recruiters need to work even harder to get their voice heard online.

The top candidates might be passive

Research from LinkedIn has shown that 70% of the global workforce is made up of passive talent who aren’t actively job searching, but 87% of active and passive candidates are open to new job opportunities. In other words, there’s a massive potential pool of candidates out there who aren’t looking at job ads – that’s why you need to step up and make your opportunities visible.

With demand for jobs increasing, now is the time to strike

According to the UK’s Office for National Statistics, there are more job vacancies now than before the Covid-19 pandemic, while the unemployment rate has fallen slightly. Businesses reduced their recruitment activity over the last year, but that’s going to increase. That means there’s a whole wave of jobseekers out there, whether they’ve been made redundant or they are looking for a career change.

So what exactly can revamping your marketing strategy do for your recruitment firm?

Identify and target your niche

We’re shocked to read that 90% of recruiting emails aren’t personalised at all. Whether you are looking to create a specific campaign targeting a certain type of candidate or targeting a specific sector, building an online presence to reflect this is crucial. Build a persona of what your candidate is interested in and work backwards to create a strategy where everything is aligned across content, social media, emails and your website.

Help your opportunities stand out

Let’s face it – it’s the job roles you have on offer that candidates are really interested in, so don’t hide them away. Figure out when your audience is online, which social media platform they use and who they follow, and then schedule a post with an opportunity that will stop them scrolling. When writing job descriptions, make sure you have identified the benefits that will appeal to your target audience, not just the general crowd.

Build engagement online

Job seekers move fast – if a hiring process is too long, 57% of them lose interest, so imagine how quickly they’ll move on from your recruitment company. Write engaging emails they won’t unsubscribe from and social media accounts they’ll want to keep up with – that will help you build relationships with candidates and help you expand your pool.

Recruitment agency marketing: how Nutcracker can help

Our agency works with recruitment agencies of all sizes to source the right candidates with marketing that tracks the movements of your target audience and reacts accordingly.

We’ve helped specialised and broad-reaching recruiters to expand their reach on social media, become thought leaders through content marketing and grow their contacts through email campaigns based on in-depth analysis. So believe us when we say that online marketing can make all the difference.

Are you a recruitment firm looking to shake up your marketing approach but don’t know where to start? Get in touch with us today by emailing hello@nutcrackeragency.com for a chat about how we’ve worked with recruiters in the past and what we can do for you.