Sr. Director of Employer Brand & Culture | Head of DEI Practice at Blu Ivy Group. Building magnetic employer brands and cultures.
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According to a review published in the International Journal of Management, Accounting and Economics, “recruitment marketing has emerged as a result of the competitive and complex nature of the labor market,” especially in this digital age. And it's here to stay. However, it is still an emerging area and there are three key reasons that most recruitment marketing efforts miss the mark.
1. They lack authenticity.
If your recruitment marketing messages promise an employee experience your organization can’t deliver, you’re going to encounter challenges. In the early stages of the candidate journey, candidates will do their homework and check company reviews on Glassdoor, Indeed and Comparably. In fact, this is almost the norm nowadays. So, if candidates do that and discover that the real employee experience, as portrayed by employee reviews, is different than what they’ve been led to believe, you lose credibility with the candidate and risk losing them to your competitors.
Another risk occurs during the employee journey when a candidate joins your organization and realizes that you overpromised during the recruitment process and underdelivered upon hire. In the employee’s mind, you have misled them and violated their trust. When this happens, the result is a disengaged employee who either stays and remains resentful or leaves with a negative impression that could impact your employer brand if they voice their discontent. In both cases, there is a big impact to the business.
That’s why the best employer brands (and cultures) are authentic and highlight what talent values most about working at your organization — your employee value proposition (EVP). When your recruitment marketing is aligned with your EVP and the employee experience you offer, that’s when you gain the ability to not only recruit talent more effectively but to retain and engage them as well.
Authenticity is really the key, whether you have an EVP or not. In fact, authenticity has become so powerful that research now shows that authenticity isn't just an element of effective recruitment marketing — it's also a highly attractive psychological benefit that top talent values nearly as much as they value opportunities for personal development. The takeaway here is to really focus on honesty and authenticity in recruitment marketing because it doesn't just enhance credibility, it enhances the perception of employer attractiveness as well.
2. They're not differentiating.
While authenticity is an essential element of recruitment messaging, it’s not enough. In order to truly stand out from your talent competitors and attract the best and brightest to your organization, your recruitment marketing needs to highlight your unique strengths as an employer.
This is especially important for organizations that are smaller, less established, in industries that have a specific and widely known reputation or that operate in locations that are saturated with competitors. In all of those cases, if you don’t have something unique and compelling to say that makes your organization stand out from the rest, you risk being lost in a “sea of sameness” and missed or dismissed by talent. In essence, it doesn't matter how attractive your recruitment marketing is if it's virtually indistinguishable from everything else that's out there.
This doesn’t mean that you should manufacture differentiation though; authenticity is still important. Start by looking at data from employee surveys, focus groups and leadership interviews, and home in on the unique ways people describe the work experience. Start with those themes and, if they also feel authentic and resonate with others, you may have found some great building blocks to help enhance your recruitment (and internal) marketing.
3. They don't sound human.
Being human is about thinking about the tone, style and voice of your recruitment messaging, which matters more than you think. Does your recruitment marketing read like a corporate or HR policy? Does it feel like legal jargon? If so, while it likely informs talent about what you have to offer, ask yourself whether it resonates with them or inspires them. It may, but chances are that it doesn’t, in which case, it isn't doing what it's meant to do.
When it comes to the importance of brands communicating in more human ways, research shows that people trust people more than they trust organizations. That’s part of the reason social advocacy and employee ambassadorship and referrals are so effective — the messaging comes from people, not brands. It feels human, real and more trustworthy.
It’s also part of the reason candidates will not only check your career site to learn about your company and culture prior to attending an interview or accepting an offer, they’ll also check Glassdoor, Indeed, Comparably and social media, and they'll ask around. They want to hear from real people what your company is all about because they want the real story — not what a company has carefully curated in order to attract talent. It makes sense then that adopting a more human and relatable tone can not only make your recruitment messaging more believable and relatable, but it can make it much more effective, too.
Plus, when it comes down to it, once basic needs are met, people crave human connection, they want to belong to something bigger and they are attracted to powerful purpose. If the tone and style of your recruitment messaging can at least be more human, you stand a better chance of connecting with your ideal talent. Of course, if your employee experience also feels far from human, then you’ve got a bigger challenge to tackle. But if not, revisit your tone and style if you want to improve your chances of connecting with talent.
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