A Powerful Partnership: What You and Your Recruitment Agency Can Do Together

It’s humbling. Almost everyone I know in Talent Acquisition, I’m proud to say, has told me how much they appreciate and rely on the partnership and consultative services that our recruitment marketing agency has provided for HR professionals over the past six and a half decades.

Like other businesses in our space, Shaker Recruitment Advertising & Communications (www.shaker.com)—which my grandfather started 65 years ago and which my father led for 30 years before handing leadership management over to me—taps the appropriate marketing tools (which change at an increasingly accelerated rate) to identify, interact with, and convert prospective candidates for employment.

During the late 1990s, some advertising conglomerates bought recruitment advertising agencies, believing them to be a good fit for their business. Shaker remained independent: privately held, family owned and operated. Over the past few years, most conglomerates have spun off the recruitment marketing firms they’d acquired, finding employment-related communications and marketing to be a whole different ballgame. 

Because it is.

Recruitment marketing is a unique specialty. And it’s hard.

My experience partnering with employers of all sizes and from all types of industries has led me to believe this: Talent acquisition is the most difficult sales role. It’s challenging to persuade people to make life-changing decisions about their jobs. A good recruiter listens to applicants, interprets their aspirations and inhibitions, and responds in a manner that conveys empathy and encouragement in an inspiring and convincing manner. I have always respected TA professionals for being the most compelling persuaders in the workplace.

But before a recruiter even has the opportunity to meet and convert a candidate to hire, a pool of qualified talent must be generated. This pool comprises individuals who want to work for a specific company (likely after being exposed to employer-branded communications), as well as those who seek a job but don’t prioritize the company to which they might apply.

That’s where the expertise (some say the “art and science”) of recruitment marketing plays a big role. Because there are tons of options—media (paid and earned), technology, creative and otherwise—to consider when strategizing and implementing a talent communications plan. Our clients turn to Shaker as a trusted adviser, a partner in successfully navigating the recruitment marketing landscape and help them uncover their Employment Value Proposition.

The talent of marketing talent

Our primary purpose as a recruitment marketing agency is to consult our clients on reaching the right talent through comprehensive, carefully customized strategies and branding campaigns. No one strategy is the same, as every client has its own particular priorities, its own culture, its own short- and long-term goals.

The recruitment function is a sales process as crucial to a company as the marketing of products and services. After all, what could be more important than finding and keeping the right-fit talent to deliver on a brand promise and drive business success?

Agencies like ours are there to nimbly evaluate, implement, and analyze recruitment marketing initiatives that incorporate compelling, user-focused creative and integrated media. To express and foster authentic employer brands. To convert job inquiries and applications into actual hires. To integrate external marketing with internal retention and referral communications. And so much more.

It’s a matter of trust

As a partner, we champion our clients’ best interests. At Shaker we appraise technology and media services from various resources not owned or affiliated by our company, so we can provide objective, impartial recommendations. Our goal is our client’s: to connect—expediently and cost-effectively—with the personnel to drive the company’s productivity, growth, and success.

Our responsibility to our clients is to coordinate every practical option from various resources for identifying appropriate candidate pools, and to reach qualified prospects with compelling messages that will persuade them to consider and accept offers of employment.

Humble, grateful … and resolute

I’ve been involved in our family’s business since day one … my day one, of course, as a member of our agency’s third generation. I’m very proud of each new client who chooses to utilize our services. Moreover, I am honored by those clients who have partnered with Shaker for five, 10, 15, 20, even 30 years or more. The tenure of our clients and of our staff—some who have been with Shaker as long as 30 years!—is an affirmation of our resilience and vitality.

Recruitment marketing media and platforms have changed since Shaker first opened for business in 1951. And they will continue to evolve as communication methods and candidate behaviors change. The employment marketplace will experience transformations in protocol and processes. So the recommendations we provide our clients will evolve to connect with candidates for employment in such a dynamic environment.

The one consistent? The element that will not change is Shaker’s personal consultative partnership with our clients and the contributions we strive to make for the continued success of each and every client.