Tighter budgets, fewer positions and more candidates means that the cleared recruiter has to be a savvy marketer building long-term relationships with their talent pipeline with fewer resources. What does this mean? Keep an eye on branding and candidate experience and learn how to leverage your current resources to the maximum of their potential.

Branding

For branding one of the first stops is your job descriptions which form the base of your online advertising on your career site and job boards. Your job descriptions also feed your social media posts, so it is critical to make sure you have all the key components clearly outlined. If you are getting the wrong candidates applying for your jobs, maybe take a look at your job postings.

Branding in your social media is about connecting with your community, not spamming job postings. Trying to find that elusive tech talent? They will find you if you provide good content and connect with your community. But not if all you are doing is spamming with poorly written tweets.

There is a lot of talk about mobile and yes it is a factor in your recruiting, but we need to look at the community. If the professional you need to fill your contract must have a polygraph,10-15 years experience, and a Master’s degree, these candidates are available. However many are not comfortable with online profiles, let alone mobile. Some of these candidates still ask if they can fax a resume and are only familiar with career search technology from 15 years ago. Know your audience.

Candidate Experience

Most importantly what is your candidate experience? How difficult is it to navigate your ATS? Do you respond to applicants or let them sit in your inbox? Word-of-mouth and referrals continue to be the silver bullet all recruiters are looking for, yet most companies fail to invest in their candidate experience to cultivate the candidate pool.

For 2014 look to branding, and candidate experience to be the two key tools to work on in your security cleared recruiting.