5 Tips for Successful Online Recruitment

When it comes to looking for a new role, job seekers are increasingly going online. After all, with the largest array of advertised jobs, whether it’s on a recruitment site, a job board or in their email, the internet is the quickest and most convenient medium by far.

If you’re used to advertising jobs and your services the so-called old fashioned way, through printed newspaper and magazine adverts, you’ll need to adapt your approach to suit the digital age.  There’s a new breed of digital savvy consumers to appeal to and a whole raft of continually changing digital marketing methods to help your website and advertising gain the best exposure and interest.

Digital marketing is a discipline all of its own. There are tricks of the trade to get your website high up in search engine results and be seen by the people you want to reach. That’s the essence of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO). Lots of technical terminology too, which may seem baffling to newcomers but the overarching principle is pretty straightforward: to engage and connect with people in the most targeted and effective way.

1) Keep your website clear and concise

Put yourself in the shoes of the jobseeker. If your site is cluttered with too much detail and any relevant information is hard to track down how would you feel? After a lot of clicking through pages and scrolling you could well lose patience and move on to another site. Whether browsing via a PC, smartphone or any digital device, information needs to be concise and presented and written in a way that’s quickly and easily understood.

Route your visitors to the information they need fast. Your first plan of attack should be to segment your audience into categories of job types such as designers, account managers and media buyers. Menus and links on the homepage will help signpost job seekers to information that’s of particular relevance and interest to their job type.

2) Strike a chord with potential candidates

Your website content needs to connect to people on an emotional level. Think of what will motivate your prospective applicants to respond to your job posts and send in their CVs. Also make it clear exactly what you can offer and how you can help the job seeker and hiring company. Remember too there are active job seekers and those who are not actively engaged in job searching (but could be), so carefully target your content accordingly.

3) Track your visitors to gain key knowledge

Tracking the number of website visitors, where they have come from and the search terms they use to hit upon your site is invaluable.  It means you can gauge the success of your content and will help you make quick and intelligently-informed decisions to guide your strategic approach.

4) Get socially connected

We all know how social media has become an all-consuming part of our social lives. Big brands know this is one of the best places to reach the right people and invest time and money in posting news, content and adverts.  As a recruiter it too is a great platform for engaging with your prospective applicants. With recruitment being a people-centric business, regularly interacting on social media makes perfect sense.  It also allows you to learn more about your audience. Keep the interest going by sharing relevant articles, videos and news with jobseekers. This will demonstrate the added value of your recruitment agency and your professional expertise. Don’t forget to add hashtags to maximise the visibility of your posts.

5) Create excitement

The online job advert shouldn’t be seen as a digitalised incarnation of a printed one. With digital media you have moving graphics, video and other eye-catching and attention-grabbing devices to play with. Branding to create a well-recognised and distinctive image for your company is very important. Take a clue from big brand advertising, which is largely aspirational. You may not be selling a lifestyle dream, but you are trying to entice jobseekers to move to a more exciting workplace. Appeal to their desires by focusing on the work culture rather than giving a run-of-the-mill job description statement that could read like a dull checklist. Remember in the recruitment business it’s all about creating personal and emotionally driven engagement between candidates and companies.

Recruitment Traffic is a successful specialist in SEO, PPC and website content for recruitment agencies. Through high Google-ranked website content and better targeted sponsored ads we’ll attract more candidates and hiring companies to your site.  Speak to us if you want to learn more.