Inbound Recruiting: The Love Child of Marketing & Recruitment has Arrived (And it’s Here to Stay!)

To survive in an increasingly competitive market, recruiters are now emphasising the need to build a strong talent pool and more personal relationships with their clients – and many are turning to inbound marketing to help them achieve this – but what exactly is it?

Inbound marketing (or in this case, inbound recruiting) is all about making prospective clients and candidates aware of your business and giving them a reason to want to work with you (when the time is right). It’s focused on establishing relationships and building trust by engaging your audience through offering value and demonstrating your expertise.

Typically, inbound recruiting is separated into three stages:

1. Attract: sparking that initial interest from clients and candidates by demonstrating the value you can offer them and establishing a level of trust.
2. Engage: focusing your efforts on those most interested. This stage is all about nurturing your leads and transforming them into clients.
3. Delight: the better your sales process, the more likely you are to be recommended. Ensure your communication remains strong and you continue to offer value to your candidates and clients even after you’ve ‘sealed the deal’.

Now you know what inbound recruiting is, let’s explore the benefits and drawbacks it can present and why it is a match made in heaven for recruitment agencies.

The good 

1. Better qualified candidates

Inbound recruitment doesn’t just attract candidates; it attracts candidates that want to work with you. By providing them with endless value and demonstrating you are prioritising their needs over simply hitting targets, you can almost guarantee your agency will be their first port of call when they are ready to make a career move. 

Equally, the same applies to clients; if you continue to build relationships and offer valuable resources to them, when they come to needing an agency to help recruit for their business, you can almost guarantee they will call on you. 

2. Improved SEO

By consistently posting high-quality content (which is what inbound recruiting is all about), you will be increasing the relevancy of your site whilst showing the Search Engine’s you have plenty of content to address your audience’s needs. In turn, this will help to improve your site’s ranking in the SERP. 

Additionally, by posting insightful content, you are increasing your likelihood of receiving backlinks, which again will help to increase your ranking and site authority. And remember: better SEO equals more organic traffic – so it’s a great opportunity to generate leads and drive conversions! 

3. More efficient hiring process

Having an effective inbound recruitment strategy will enable you to build relationships with candidates and build a strong talent pool, meaning when the time comes, you will have a great selection of applicants ready and waiting to put forward to your clients.

4. Word of mouth recommendations

As we mentioned earlier, one of the main purposes of inbound recruiting is to delight your audience in a way that encourages them to want to share their experience and recommend your services. And people trust their peers more than anyone else; they are relatable, trustworthy and credible, so receiving a recommendation from them is invaluable. 

5. Credibility and authority

If you are consistently publishing relevant content that offers value to your audience and enables you to share your expertise, your agency will soon be considered trustworthy and credible. Think of it as a ‘put your money where your mouth is’ situation in that rather than telling your audience that you are experts who can solve their problems, you are showing them.

6. Cost-effective

Social media? Free. Blogging? Free. SEO? Free. As you can see, there are little costs associated with inbound marketing, making it a fantastic way to extend your reach, grow awareness of your agency and drive organic traffic to your website.

The bad 

1. Time-consuming

Good things take time; inbound recruiting is a long-term solution, not a short-term fix. It takes time to build relationships, establish trust and gain a following. Equally, you need to be prepared to invest time into content creation; inbound marketing will only be effective if you are producing high-quality content, so if you think you can spend 15 minutes on a blog post and get results, you are wrong. 

2. Requires a diverse set of skills

As we’ve mentioned above, for inbound recruiting to be effective, you need to be consistently producing high-quality content and offer a range of formats to keep your audience engaged. Not only do you need to produce a diverse range of content – we’re talking everything from blog posts and emails to podcasts and videos – you need to master the management, distribution and promotion side of things, too. For many, this can seem daunting; after all, you are a recruitment agency, not a team of marketing experts. But fear not, the solution is simpler than you might think: enlist the help of a marketing agency. 

Covering everything from content ideas to creation and management, digital agencies are a cost-effective way to get assistance from a team of experts who can really help you to nail inbound marketing. If you are interested in finding out more, contact us today for a free consultation.

3. Competition is high

With the recruitment sector growing, more and more agencies are realising that to get noticed, they need to have an effective inbound strategy. This (naturally) means competition is tougher than it was a few years ago – but do not let this put you off! Think about it: if it’s difficult to get noticed using inbound recruiting, it will be near on impossible without it. 

So, what’s the solution? Be persistent and think big. While it is more difficult to cut through the noise, it is still very possible; you just need to differentiate yourself and find your big idea. Again, this is where having the help of marketing experts comes in handy! 

Why is it right for recruitment agencies?

The recruitment market is saturated and competition is high; to stand out from the crowd you need to show your value and go above and beyond expectations. Inbound marketing will enable you to do exactly that – but why the sudden change? To put it simply: outbound marketing is outdated and just doesn’t cut it anymore. Changes in technology and consumer preferences mean people are expecting more from the businesses they interact with, and recruitment agencies are certainly no exception.

Furthermore, with the need to grow a talent pool rising, it is fundamental for recruitment agencies to not only attract but nurture and build relationships with passive candidates. If you want them to stick around, you need to give them a reason; show them you have their best interests at heart by adopting an inbound approach. And the same applies to clients: with more recruitment agencies entering the market, competition is becoming increasingly high which means to attract and retain clients, you need to build strong relationships and make an effort to maintain them.

Ultimately, as a recruitment agency, your priority should be to inform and help both your clients and candidates, meaning naturally, inbound recruiting is a great fit for your business. If you want to learn more and wish to discuss creating an inbound strategy for your recruitment agency, contact us today for a free consultation. Alternatively, head over to our digital marketing for recruitment agencies page to find out more about the services we can offer to help your business grow.