Storytelling - The Recruitment Marketing Trilogy

A key part of my belief is in something 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 recent 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)

As discussed in the last blog, copywriting is a core part of your recruitment marketing efforts. But what is the text without meaning?

Humans are hard-wired to listen to stories . We appreciate narratives because they are an easy way to pass on values, norms, warnings, lessons, and more. But telling stories well is a skill to learn, especially as the range of stories available to us grows.

When building an employer brand it’s important to think about the story that you want to tell through your words and your visuals. Is it a message about the values your company cares about? It is a story of the people behind the team. Or is it even an aspirational message for future hires?

Let’s take a look at a few examples of storytelling in the recruiting sphere.

First up is LinkedIn and their #InItTogether campaign. This campaign focused on the stories of real people who have used their platform to find their dream job. Through a combination of visual online and offline marketing, the company built a motivational narrative for job seekers using their platform. They also helped foster a content culture on LinkedIn which is still prevailing to this day. Ultimately this was a very human narrative from the company, which emphasizes the people that make up its community.

Next up is Innocent Drinks with their career website . Innocent has built a fun-loving, caring narrative for its brand even since its early days. They ensure that any content or copy they create fits into their storyline of being “natural, entrepreneurial, responsible, commercial, generous.” As you can see throughout their branding and copywriting, the narrative of being an open, caring team is deeply intertwined with their employer's brand. This is storytelling for the audience they want to attract, people who want to be part of a game-changing team.

And lastly, let’s take a look at the Go Places with Heineken campaign. For a beer brand famed for its excellent branding, its recruitment marketing efforts are also very strong. This campaign focused on building an aspirational narrative for potential hires. It shows Heineken as a place for go-getters, dreamers, and people who want to get things done. It’s a clever employer branding strategy reminiscent of other companies like Redbull that want to build a culture separate from using their main product.

You are well on the path to honing your recruitment marketing now! You’ve understood how to write compelling copy with an overarching narrative, which means the remaining part is to be able to infuse these lessons into your content strategy.