When building out a comprehensive recruitment marketing strategy, you need to decide 3 important aspects among others.  First, you need to decide the recruiting channels you will use from job boards to social networks to mobile recruiting, Talent Network, etc.).  Second, you need to decide on the technology that will be integral to your overall strategy.  And third and sometimes forgotten you need to determine the employer brand messaging that you will be highlighting to qualified candidates with interest in your company.

While all three are important, I would like to focus on recruitment messaging in this post.  Recruitment messaging is probably just if not more important than deciding how to distribute it.  Selling a qualified candidate on your company is the end goal of any recruiting interaction and if your messaging is flat and not compelling enough, it doesn’t matter if you use the best recruiting channels, you won’t be able to recruit top talent.

So the question is how do you create great recruitment messaging and how do you get more qualified candidates excited about the possibility of working for your organization.  First, you need to figure out what is special about your organization and company culture that differentiates you from competitors.  Second, you need to get your Employees involved in your recruiting efforts.  And this is where I’d like to dig deeper.

Your employees are your greatest brand ambassadors when it comes to recruiting.  Who knows your company better and can highlight why your company is great to work for than an employee that’s been actually working there.

There are a # of ways that you can utilize employees in your recruitment message and recruitment marketing efforts as well.  Here are a few:

Determining Value Proposition: Have you ever asked employees that are in a job you are recruiting for, what attracted them to the position & company?  You don’t have to do formal interviews but ask current employees why they like working at your organization.  You may be surprised what you hear and it will help you to better determine the value proposition that you can use in your recruitment messaging.

Employment Branding: If you are not using your employees in your employment messaging you are missing a golden opportunity.  Create videos about your company culture, have employees write blog articles on working at your company and most of all, make employees accessible to qualified candidates that would like to speak to them about their experience with your organization.  Adding a face to your organization through your employees will provide you with an advantage in recruiting top talent.

Tapping their Talent Network: It’s no secret that having a Referral Program at your company can be a great way to tap into your employees own networks to find qualified candidates.  However, as you are setting up your Referral Program, I urge you to focus rewards on results as opposed to activity.  By this, I mean to reward employees who bring in qualified candidates that reach the final interview or receive the job position, instead of just sending all their contacts to your ATS.

Use what’s worked before: Go through the best employees that you have at your company.  What does their background look like?  What skills have enabled them to be successful in the given position they have?  Get an idea of what skills / personalities work the best for different positions at your company and target these in your job campaigns and resume sourcing searches.

Also, ask these employees how they initially heard about your company.  Did they all frequent a particular recruiting channel or job board?  Did they hear about it from a friend?  Were they contacted about the position by a recruiter?  This can give you an understanding of what channels are bringing in your best talent and which channels you should be using more often (in accordance with recruitment metrics).

Make your employees your greatest employment brand ambassadors by highlighting them in your messaging to qualified candidates.  The more involved they become in your recruiting efforts and better your recruiting results will be.

Originally posted on the SmashFly Recruitment Technology Blog.