The rise of the recruitment marketer: Candidate vs. Applicant vs. New Hire

With the myriad of different channels and systems plus the rise of marketing automation, I see the recruitment model evolving to mimic B2B marketing more and more. But what do I mean by this and how does the ATS adapt to this demand for marketing functionality?

As you can see from the diagram above, I have placed the person in three key stages:

• Candidate - pre application, suspect, passive.
• Applicant - post application, slightly qualified, active.
• New Hire - post offer but pre hire, qualified, engaged.

In the sales environment the term BANT is often used as part of the sales process. BANT stands for:

• B(udget).
• A(pproved).
• N(needs defined).
• T(imeframe for project).

BANT is a good approach for leads and what all sales people would like from marketing but to get to this stage can take a lot of effort. In some cases, by the time you find out about a BANT qualified lead, you may simply be on the invitation to tender list to make up the numbers. I have seen many examples where the win ratio of unexpected invites is 1 in 10 (and lower) yet the amount of effort to compete is significant. I know you have to be "in it to win it" but unless you have a well oiled tender machine it can be counter productive.

Turning this back to recruitment, it can be the same as having a CV sent to you by an agency for a candidate that is already engaged with another employer. You may be able to turn them but probably not that often (any recruiter views on this please share). This is not a criticism of the agency as an actively looking candidate wants to keep their options open hence the agency will send the CV to you possibly not knowing they are further down the process elsewhere. On occasions you may still hire them but maybe not that often. Again, you've got to be "in it to win it".

But as with sales, if you rely purely on and only work on BANT qualfied leads you are minimising your chances whereas if you are engaged earlier in the stage, ideally helping to define the project, you have more chance of winning. From a recruitment aspect, if you are already engaged with the candidate while they are only just starting to think about a job, and you can help guide them in the right direction within your organisation (or via your agency) then you are in a stronger position to hire them. This is basic human nature; people feel compelled to stay loyal (to some degree) to those that have become a trusted partner. 

Of course, to be engaged with every possible candidate is not viable in the same way every suspect customer will not have (or want) a regular call or visit from a friendly sales person too early in the sales cycle. So this is where marketing automation, process and content come in but to work your content has to be:

• Relevant.
• Timely.
• Quality.

Where to start with automation

I could come up with a list of 10 or more things you could do around candidate marketing automation and if you take a look at HubSpot you can see some ideas that would work for recruitment. But, the majority of recruiters have very little marketing automation in place right now (happy to include job alerts as automation) so rather than have a long list of things that will not be seen any day soon, let's focus on some simple, basic ideas that will show an immediate improvement and will result in more candidate to applicant conversions at zero cost.

• Content - this could be anything from a tweet to a job.
• Landing page - more in my next post.
• Short automated warming e-mails, DM's, status updates.
• Targeted messages/latest jobs.

To give you an idea of what marketers think about automation:

71% of US marketers use or plan to use marketing automation.

Adobe Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing, 2011

If marketing automation is the rocket, then content is the fuel.

Russell Sparkman FusionSpark Media

Marketing overview

From a basic lead generation approach, this is what recruiters need to be thinking about to start to build more properly qualified applicants as well as a better talent pool. This is not just about advertising jobs on job boards as 1) You know how to do this and 2) the process is more direct/immediate. 

A simple process like the above works. I have proved it beyond doubt in B2B marketing and recruitment marketing. If this sounds of interest my next post will cover the landing page and automated sequences and the follow-on post will explain where and how you do this but I'll leave you with the question:

Where does all this marketing automation take place:

• Is it part of the ATS?
• Is it part of a marketing automation system?

Clue: Salesforce.com does NOT have this functionality and integrates with systems such as HubSpot.

Want to know more right now? Contact us to find out how HirePad supports the above approach to Candidate Marketing.