How to develop a recruitment marketing strategy

Candidates today evaluate potential job openings and companies in a similar way to how consumers evaluate products. They do their research, read reviews, evaluate fit, and weigh the potential return. Because of this, it’s more important than ever to have clear and deliberate employer messaging and outreach strategies that speak directly to your ideal candidate. This is where recruitment marketing comes into play.

In this article, we’re going to take a deep dive into the concept of recruitment marketing. We’ll look at what it is, why it’s important, and share some common recruitment marketing strategies and tips for creating your own plan.

Let’s get started!

What is recruitment marketing?

Recruitment marketing refers to the combination of inbound and outbound strategies that companies use to attract, engage, and nurture potential candidates. 

It involves actively promoting the employer brand and communicating the organization’s value proposition to target the right talent. Much like traditional marketing, recruitment marketing requires setting a comprehensive strategy and employing tactical methods—such as content marketing, social media outreach, and talent nurturing—to create a consistent and positive candidate experience. 

This approach not only attracts active job seekers but also engages passive candidates by building long-term relationships. Modern recruitment marketing also leverages data and technology to optimize efforts, ensuring companies can effectively reach, convert, and retain top talent.

Relevant: 5 tips to boost your recruitment marketing with employer branding

Recruitment marketing vs. recruiting

The main difference between recruiting and recruitment marketing is that recruiting focuses on filling specific job openings by actively seeking candidates, while recruitment marketing aims to attract and engage potential talent by promoting the employer brand and creating interest in the organization, often before roles are even available.

Recruitment marketing is a proactive strategy to build a talent pipeline, whereas recruiting is more reactive to immediate hiring needs.

5 benefits of recruitment marketing

Think of recruitment marketing as a program and investment that lays the foundation for future hiring success. Like with traditional marketing, results aren’t always noticeable or measurable, but incrementally, over time, they translate into heightened awareness and interest in your company. 

Here are five key benefits of recruitment marketing:

1. Attracts higher-quality candidates

Recruitment marketing helps organizations intelligently and systematically target and attract top talent. 

By engaging candidates through compelling content and clear messaging, organizations are more likely to attract applicants who are not only qualified but also a good cultural fit, leading to better hiring outcomes and higher retention rates.

2. Strengthens employer brand awareness

Consistent recruitment marketing efforts build a stronger employer brand, making your organization more recognizable and appealing to both active and passive candidates. A well-crafted employer brand differentiates your company from competitors, helping to attract the right talent and boost your reputation as an employer of choice in the market.

3. Improves candidate engagement

Recruitment marketing fosters ongoing relationships with potential candidates, even when no immediate job openings are available. 

This helps maintain a warm pipeline of engaged talent who are more likely to apply when the right role becomes available, reducing time-to-hire and ensuring a smoother recruitment process.

4. Enhances hiring success rates

By strategically targeting and engaging the right candidates, recruitment marketing leads to better hiring decisions and results.

Candidates attracted through these efforts are more aligned with the company’s values and job requirements, resulting in higher acceptance rates, fewer mis-hires, and lower turnover.

Marketing, like recruiting, has also become much more data-driven in recent years, allowing for experimentation and strategy refinement over time. Recruiters and their partners in marketing can closely monitor and align KPIs from their respective programs to understand which tactics, channels, and messaging resonates mostly effectively with target candidates, and which campaigns ultimately lead to the best hires. 

5. Increases employee retention 

As a result of the refinement mentioned above, and the incremental improvement of hiring success rates, employee retention also tends to improve with recruitment marketing. This is because recruiters and marketers understand what works most effectively, and are able to deliver the right messages, in the right packages, to help candidates self-select before applying for roles. 

When candidates are well-informed about the company’s culture and expectations, they’re more likely to stay long-term. Recruitment marketing ensures that candidates have a clear understanding of the company before they even apply, which reduces early attrition and improves overall employee retention.

The recruitment marketing funnel explained

Recruitment marketing can occur at all stages of the hiring process, and on an ongoing, always-on basis. The goal is to create something of a flywheel effect, where potential candidates continuously become aware of the company, learn about your culture and benefits, develop interest, and then make a decision to reach out to you. This flywheel is, in essence, a recruitment marketing funnel. 

What is the recruitment marketing funnel?

The recruitment marketing funnel is a framework used to guide potential candidates through various stages of engagement, from first becoming aware of your company to taking action by applying for a job. 

Much like a sales funnel, the recruitment marketing funnel helps recruiters strategically attract, nurture, and convert candidates by using targeted tactics at each stage of the process. By understanding and optimizing this funnel, organizations can ensure they not only attract top talent but also keep them engaged throughout the candidate journey.

4 stages of the recruitment marketing funnel 

Traditionally, there are four key phases in a recruitment marketing funnel: 

• Awareness
• Interest
• Decision
• Action 

The tactics used, and the success metrics tracked, change as candidates move through a funnel. Together, these phases are used to nurture candidates from pre-awareness through to application. 

Here’s how each one works and what tactics are used. 

1. Awareness

At this stage, the goal is to make candidates aware of your company and its employer brand. The top of the funnel is about creating visibility and ensuring potential candidates know who you are and what your company stands for.

Tactics:

• Employer branding. Promote your company culture, mission, and values through social media, career pages, and blog posts.
• Content marketing. Share employee stories, company news, and industry insights through blog articles, videos, and podcasts.
• SEO and paid ads. Use search engine optimization (SEO) and targeted ads on platforms like LinkedIn, Google, and social media to increase your visibility.
• Social media. Post organic content and engage with your community to build awareness and trust in your brand. 

2. Interest

Once candidates are aware of your company, the next step is to generate interest by showcasing why your company is a great place to work. This stage is about deepening engagement and building a connection with potential candidates.

Tactics:

• Social media. Share regular updates about company events, new hires, and team activities to build a connection.
• Email marketing. Use personalized email campaigns to nurture relationships with potential candidates, providing them with relevant content that highlights your company’s strengths.
• Career pages: Optimize your career pages to provide detailed information about benefits, growth opportunities, and what makes your company stand out in the industry.

3. Decision

In the decision stage, candidates are considering whether they want to pursue a job with your company. Here, your role is to provide the information they need to make an informed decision and build their confidence in choosing your company.

Tactics:

• Job descriptions. Create clear, compelling job descriptions that outline responsibilities, qualifications, and company perks.
• Employee reviews. Share employee testimonials, success stories, and video interviews showcasing current employees' experiences. Curate reviews from Glassdoor and other review sites, along with interviewing your existing employees, to help gather these perspectives. 
• Virtual or on-site experiences. Host recruitment webinars, open houses, or job fairs to give candidates direct insight into your company and the team they would be working with.

4. Action

At the final stage, the goal is to convert interested candidates into applicants by making the application process easy and compelling. This stage is where candidates take action and apply for open positions.

Tactics:

• Streamline application process. Ensure your application process is mobile-friendly, simple, and quick to complete, reducing friction for candidates who are ready to apply.
• Calls-to-action (CTAs): Use strong CTAs in your job postings, emails, and on your career site that encourage candidates to apply immediately.
• Automated follow-ups: Once candidates apply, use automated email confirmations and personalized follow-up messages to keep them engaged through the hiring process.

Tip: Recruitee by Tellent can help streamline and automate your recruitment process by automatically sending messages to your pipeline candidates, alerting teammates of key milestones, and moving candidates each stage of the hiring process.

By implementing the recruitment marketing funnel, companies can systematically guide candidates from initial awareness to taking action, ensuring a smooth and engaging experience at each stage. 

Of course, attracting and converting candidates is just the start. Once they’re in the hiring process, responsibility turns to recruiters to provide a strong and fair candidate experience. 

Key components of a recruitment marketing strategy 

Recruiting marketing strategies take many of the same tactics in conventional marketing and apply them to the hiring process and employer branding.

It’s important to emphasize, though, that a marketing strategy is not the same as marketing tactics. Strategies are founded on research and collaboration to help recruiters and marketers deeply understand the market in which they will operate and the candidates they wish to attract. Tactics are then used to engage with that market and those candidates. You need both, but you cannot be effective in recruitment marketing with tactics alone. 

Relevant: Building an effective recruitment marketing strategy

With that in mind, let’s dig into some important elements of a recruitment marketing strategy. 

1. Market research and persona development

Before you can do any recruitment marketing, you need to clearly identify who you want to speak to, how you want to speak to them, and what the competition is already saying.

You likely already have a good idea of the types of candidates and employees you want to have. This is usually evident in the types of values and personalities that your team hopes to embed across your organization.

Take the time as a group to come up with a handful of highly personalized candidate personas that you can use to guide your messaging and outreach. Look at other companies that are targeting the same candidates. What are they saying and promising? Find your company’s niche, and let that drive your messaging going forward.

2. Employer Value Proposition (EVP)

Once you’ve identified your target audience through persona development, the next step is to clearly define your Employer Value Proposition (EVP). This is the core of your employer brand and represents the unique value your company offers to its employees. 

Your EVP should answer the key question: why should a candidate choose to work for your organization over another? It’s essential to collaborate with internal stakeholders—such as HR, leadership, and current employees—to identify the values, benefits, and culture that make your organization stand out.

A strong EVP helps you differentiate your company in a crowded job market and guides your recruitment messaging. When clearly defined, it ensures that all recruitment marketing efforts consistently reflect the same promise and values to candidates.

3. Competitor analysis

Before crafting your recruitment marketing plan, you need to understand what your competitors are doing in terms of employer branding and recruitment. A thorough competitor analysis will help you identify what other organizations in your industry or geographical area are offering to attract talent. 

Evaluate their career sites, social media presence, job postings, and employee reviews on platforms like Glassdoor. What messaging are they using? What benefits are they promoting? This analysis will help you identify gaps in the market that your recruitment marketing can fill.

Understanding your competitors allows you to position your brand more strategically. It ensures that your recruitment marketing is unique and stands out, rather than blending into what everyone else is doing.

4. KPIs 

Before diving into specific tactics, you need to set measurable and achievable recruitment marketing goals or KPIs. 

These goals should align with the overall hiring objectives of your organization, such as increasing applicant volume, improving candidate quality, or reducing time-to-hire. Setting clear goals provides a framework to measure the success of your recruitment marketing efforts and helps you stay focused. Without them, it’s difficult to evaluate what’s working and what needs improvement, leading to wasted resources and unfocused efforts.

For example, your goals might include growing your talent pipeline by 20% or improving career site conversions by 15% within six months.

Tip: Recruitee by Tellent offers pre-built data dashboards that you can use to track KPIs for your recruitment marketing efforts. You can also create custom data boards that help to ensure that all relevant metrics are available to you at a glance.

5. Budget and resource planning

Finally, an essential component of any recruitment marketing strategy is understanding the budget and resources available to execute it. Recruitment marketing can involve various costs—from paid advertising and technology tools to content creation and employer branding campaigns. 

You must plan early on how much you can allocate to each area and identify the internal and external resources you will need, such as recruitment marketing tools, a dedicated team, or third-party agencies.

Budget and resource planning ensures that your strategy is realistic and actionable. It helps you prioritize which tactics are most critical and ensures you can execute your plan effectively without overspending. 

25 recruitment marketing tactics to include in your strategy

Once you’ve set your recruitment marketing strategy, goals, and budget, you can move into selecting specific tactics. Here are the most common—and effective—ones to consider. 

Content marketing

• Career sites. Your career site is the primary hub for your employer brand content. It should feature optimized job listings, videos, employee testimonials, and clear calls-to-action, making it easy for candidates to engage.
• SEO. Search engine optimization ensures that potential candidates can find your job listings and employer brand content. Research the keywords that candidates are using and optimize your career page and blog posts around those terms. Note: Recruitee by Tellent offers built-in SEO capabilities for your job posts and careers pages, allowing you to specify metadata for each job, and to upload a featured image. 
• Video marketing. Videos are highly engaging and an excellent medium for showcasing company culture, employee experiences, and office tours. These videos can be shared across your website, social media, and emails to reinforce your brand.
• Testimonials & FAQs. Employee testimonials and FAQs help address candidate concerns, create trust, and deliver answers that will move candidates further along in their decision-making process.
• Interactive content. Use interactive quizzes or assessments on your career site that allow candidates to assess their fit for certain roles or career paths within your company. This can help engage potential applicants early on.
• Job preview content. Offer candidates an inside look at what a typical day looks like for different roles through "day-in-the-life" videos or interactive tours. This gives candidates a realistic expectation of what it's like to work at your company.

Tip: Recruitee’s CareersHub is a one-stop shop that helps you easily build your careers site and employer brand to attract candidates.

Data and analytics

• Website analytics. Track traffic, page views, and time spent on key content pages, including career sites and blog posts. Measure how candidates move through your site and where they drop off to optimize engagement.
• Funnel conversion metrics. Measure conversion rates from awareness to application. Track how many candidates move from initial interest (e.g., visiting a job post) to the final action (e.g., submitting an application or booking an interview).
• Engagement metrics. Assess how candidates interact with your content, such as video views, social media engagement, email click-through rates, and page load times. High engagement means your content is resonating.
• A/B Testing. Run A/B tests on email subject lines, job ad headlines, and social media posts to determine which versions drive more engagement or applications.
• Heatmaps. Use heatmap tools to track how candidates interact with your career site. See which sections are drawing the most attention and adjust your page design accordingly to improve user experience.
• Predictive analytics. Use predictive analytics to forecast hiring trends and understand what type of talent your organization will need in the future. This can help you refine your persona development and proactively adjust your content strategies.
• Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO): Focus on improving the conversion rates of key recruitment funnels, such as turning career site visitors into applicants. This includes optimizing calls-to-action (CTAs), page layouts, and load times for better performance.

Tip: Recruitee by Tellent offers career site analytics that allow you to track traffic to your careers site, helping you identify trends and improvement opportunities. See which candidate sources are most effectives, and how many visitors turn into candidates.

Digital marketing

• Email marketing. Create segmented email campaigns to deliver personalized content to different candidate personas. Keep them updated on job openings, company culture, and news, ensuring ongoing engagement.
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. Paid ads on platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google are highly targeted. PPC allows you to reach a wide pool of potential candidates by using ads that are optimized for clicks, engagement, and conversions. Tip: Recruitee by Tellent allows you to advertise your job opening across multiple channels, helping you coordinate paid campaigns to attract the right audience at the right budget. 
• Lead nurturing. Use marketing automation tools to nurture candidates over time. For example, you can create drip campaigns that send tailored emails to candidates who have interacted with your content but haven’t yet applied.
• Retargeting campaigns. Use retargeting ads to re-engage candidates who visited your career site but didn’t apply. This keeps your company top of mind and encourages them to revisit.
• Geotargeting. Target potential candidates based on their location with tailored messaging. This is especially useful if you're hiring for roles in a specific region or want to attract local talent for in-office positions.
• Programmatic advertising. Automate your ad buying to target specific candidate profiles across multiple platforms using programmatic advertising. This allows for more efficient ad placement and spending.‍
• SMS & text campaigns. Use SMS messaging to follow up with candidates after they show interest or visit your career site. Text messages have higher open and engagement rates than emails, making them a powerful way to keep candidates engaged.

‍Tip: Recruitee by Tellent allows you to capture consent from candidates and message them directly through the application to centralize and streamline SMS communications.

Employer brand management

• Reputation management. Actively manage your presence on employer review sites like Glassdoor and Indeed by responding to reviews and gathering feedback. A well-managed reputation attracts candidates who share your values, and ensures that you’re not losing out on qualified candidates due to poor sentiment about your company online.
• Social proof and testimonials. Share authentic employee stories, testimonials, and case studies throughout your marketing content and channels to build credibility. Potential candidates are more likely to apply when they see real stories that resonate with their own career aspirations.
• Consistent branding across channels. Ensure that all your recruitment touchpoints, from social media posts to job descriptions, carry the same tone, messaging, and visuals. This creates a unified experience for candidates and solidifies your company’s brand.
• Employee advocacy programs. Encourage your employees to share their experiences on social media or through employee ambassador programs. This provides an authentic view of your company culture and increases your reach.‍
• Social responsibility campaigns. Highlight your company’s involvement in social responsibility initiatives, such as charity work, sustainability, or diversity and inclusion efforts. This is increasingly important for candidates who prioritize companies with a strong social mission.

As mentioned, recruitment marketing tactics alone aren’t likely to move the dial significantly for you without a strong underlying strategy. The above list is designed to get you thinking about what tactics you might use to attract, engage, and nurture your target audience. It’s up to you to determine the best ones to use, and how to use them. 

Gone are the days when you could rely on a recruitment ad alone to create qualified inbound applicants. Candidates today are savvy. They're inundated with information and opportunities from across the Internet at all times. It's your job as a recruitment marketer to break through that noise and deliver a message and experience that will make your organization hard to resist for job seekers.

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