Copywriting - The Recruitment Marketing Trilogy

A key part of my belief is in what I call Recruitment 3.0, which describes how recruiters' professions will need to adapt to the increasing competition for talent and the changing structure of the workforce.

But how? ??????

In order to become a Recruiter 3.0, you’ll need to master an increasingly integrated set of tools, build your digital savviness and learn the art of influencing.

One of the central parts of this new skillset is recruitment marketing, in other words, how to attract, nurture and engage potential talent. This could be for the purpose of an immediate hire or to fill your pipeline with qualified candidates for the future. Recruitment marketing involves not just knowing your hiring basics but learning to build compelling online content, create an employer branding narrative, measure success, manage a project and focus on relationships.

With a LinkedIn study confirming that companies with a strong employer brand see a 43% decrease in hiring costs, the marketing and hiring benefits seem clear. In this trilogy, we will explore 3 core ways to build your recruitment marketing efforts:

• Copywriting (What you say)
• Storytelling (How you say it)
• Content Creation (What you show)

But first things first, you need to write engaging content that will capture any reader's interest. And this isn’t just your job descriptions; it’s your career website, blog posts, and everything in between. In fact, the ‘marketing voice’ used by the company’s main product or service should be extended and palpable in your recruitment marketing efforts.

Let’s run through a few main ways to write compelling copy!

1. Sell your culture

Think back to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs - getting paid is just one element of what makes us happy at work. People want to know about your company culture, from the way you work as a team to what you care about.

Copywriting and tone of voice are crucial ways for you to get this across. Do you want to sound impersonal and professional? Or would you rather sound familiar and laidback?

There isn’t a clear-cut best answer here; it’s about finding a tone that’s right for your company. Experimenting with pronouns like “we” or using shorthand language or emojis are great starting points.

Take a look at Bunq’s messaging during the application process, for example. Their employer brand adopts the same tone as their overall platform, which is familiar, no-nonsense, and easy to read. By infusing the “get sh*t done” philosophy into their copy, they are selling their culture at every step of the applicant's journey.

2. Know your audience

In the same way, marketers tailor their campaigns to their target audience, who is your ideal candidate? Knowing your candidate's audience allows you to write copy that will appeal to their values, needs, and their preferences.

Check out this interesting resource from Ben Gledhill, which walks you through how to create a candidate persona. This can be a useful exercise to help you copywrite more successfully and continually improve your targeting.

3. Be skimmable

Let’s face the facts of an increasingly digital native generation.

According to Forbes, millennials have an average attention span of 12 seconds, and Gen Xers of a mere 8 seconds. Whilst that doesn’t mean candidates won’t read your job descriptions or career websites fully, in a crowded marketplace you need to stand out fast.

The introduction of “TL;DR” into our daily lives is proof of the need to make the content as digestible as it is compelling. When writing recruiting content to share with your candidates, make sure it is structured for easy reading in terms of your paragraph divisions and sentence structures.

Experimenting with bold italics and underlines can be good ways to show emphasis where needed!

Another way to write skimmable copy is to include hooks throughout your text. Applying some of the learnings of ‘jab jab jab right hook’, make sure you include impactful sentences throughout any copy in order to capture or maintain your candidate’s fullest attention.?

So there we have it, the first part of the trilogy of recruitment marketing tips! Start writing your copy today with these tips in mind, and be open to constantly experimenting to find what works :)

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Check my 'copywriting in recruitment' learning guideline here