We work with a lot of clients on recruitment marketing, helping them deliver campaigns that attract the best candidates. Career-minded, smart, driven people who share their values and can’t wait to get started. But often the brief is ‘create some ads’ or ‘design a careers page’. Whilst this may seem like clear direction, you won’t see great results unless you dig a little deeper.

If you’re doing recruitment right, your potential pool of candidates will be a diverse and interesting bunch. So you’ll need to connect with them on lots of different levels, tapping into both their rational and emotional responses. Ticking boxes on salary and location is all well and good, but candidates who FEEL something about the job or your brand are much more likely to stick. So great recruitment marketing starts with thinking about the three candidate responses below. If you get these right, effective creative and great results will follow:

  • What do you want candidates to THINK?

    What’s the rational take-out from your activity? What will it communicate about your business and the opportunity? What important boxes does it tick for your candidate?

  • What do you want candidates to FEEL?

    What’s the emotional response to your activity? Do you want them to feel excited, intrigued, inspired, motivated? Think about what’s most important, and brief your agency to deliver it.

  • What do you want candidates to DO?

    What’s the physical response to your activity? Do you want them to read more, click something, register, apply, tell a friend? Having this clear goal in mind will sharpen our response and get the results you want.

A little time on these three bits of up-front thinking will help deliver recruitment marketing that’s designed to properly engage with the candidates you want to attract. Not only will they see it, but they’ll understand it, connect with it and act on it. Working our way through this kind of brief is our bread and butter so get in touch if you fancy hearing more!