In some ways, digital recruiting and recruitment marketing (RM) are puzzle pieces that fit together just right. It’s not just because they both exist in the virtual world, either. They have a lot of complementary features and, when snapped together, employers can benefit big time. Virtual recruiting events make it easy to dip into new talent pools, broaden your reach, and engage with more candidates than you could ever dream of during an in-person job fair. Recruitment marketing takes all those advantages and levels them up, by attracting even more (and better suited) job seekers to your events, thus improving your chances of making lasting hires that improve your organization and what you can offer your customers.
That’s why virtual recruiting events are a must-have for a modern recruiting strategy. Sure, you can use recruitment marketing tactics to drive traffic to your online application, but many job seekers have been burned too many times by submitting their resume or application and feeling the ‘black hole’ effect—when they never hear anything back from the employer. A lengthy or complicated application can lose even more candidates, up to 60% according to studies.
A better alternative? Use your recruitment marketing investments to draw candidates to virtual events, where they can connect with a live recruiter or hiring manager within minutes. Beyond live chat, virtual events offer lots of other features to create a more engaging candidate experience. Here’s a look at five key reasons you should pair digital recruitment marketing and virtual hiring events to get the most bang for your buck, as well as your time.
Reason #1: Using virtual recruiting events and RM together boosts ROI for both
Recruitment marketing and virtual events are like toast and jam, peanut butter and chocolate, or grilled cheese and tomato soup. On their own, they’re pretty great, but put them together and watch the magic happen. You’re spending time and money creating and executing strategies to attract more qualified candidates, improve your candidate experience, increase engagement, reduce time to hire, and boost your offer acceptance rates. Why wouldn’t you choose to pair the two most effective tools for achieving all of those results?
Reason #2: Increase conversions
SHRM has linked higher application conversion rates to organizations with strong employer brands and effective recruitment marketing strategies. Because RM and virtual events both help you manage your employer brand by delivering the type of candidate experience job seekers want, using them together could boost your conversion rates.
It’s important to think about the other things job seekers feel are important when choosing a potential employer. A majority (77%) of job seekers consider an employer’s culture before applying for a job and recruitment marketing is an effective way to educate candidates about your organization’s values and employee experience early on in the recruiting funnel. You can double-down on this messaging during your virtual events, with (live or recorded) video presentations from employees, telling their own stories about what it’s like to work for your organization.
Reason #3: Reduce time to hire
Individually, RM and virtual recruiting help speed up the recruiting process by building a talent community that is primed and ready to go whenever recruiters need to fill a position. This means hiring happens much faster than it would if you started from square one for every job. When paired together, the benefits increase.
How much of a difference could it make? One of our customers, AdventHealth, a CandE award winner, cut overall time to hire by over 10 days across roles with virtual recruiting and recruitment marketing strategies. Scaled across your entire recruiting team, reducing time to hire can make a huge difference in hiring the best candidates out there, before the competition beats you to it.
Reason #4: Virtual events can double as RM
The key objective of recruitment marketing is to build awareness for your organization and your career opportunities. Virtual recruiting events can have a similar impact, especially when the focus of the event is not explicitly on the hiring pipeline. Hosting pre-recruiting information sessions on a virtual platform is an effective way to build awareness and strengthen your employer brand. Virtual resume reviews and mock interviews are another example, in which the goal is to help job seekers in their quest, even if it means you don’t hire them.
Reason #5: Deliver a better candidate experience
A great candidate experience is all about giving job seekers what they want. Among other things, job seekers want and expect employers to manage their employer brand. In fact, 75% of job seekers say they are likely to apply to a job if the organization actively manages its employer brand. As we illustrated earlier, recruitment marketing is a key way employers can develop and strengthen their employer brand, and virtual recruiting events help achieve that goal as well.
Virtual events and recruitment marketing are a winning pair
On their own, virtual recruiting events and recruitment marketing tactics help employers improve their recruiting outcomes in many areas. Using them together multiples the benefits, amplifies the advantages, and creates stronger talent communities that you can dive into for months and years to come. However consistent or changing your hiring needs are from year to year, using recruitment marketing strategies to attract job seekers to your virtual events, even when you don’t have immediate hiring needs, helps strengthen your employer brand and keep you top of mind when those job requisitions hit your desk.
Like this post? Try these!
- Recruitment Marketing 101
- Why You Need To Double Down on Recruitment Marketing Right Now
- 5 Key Metrics You Should be Tracking for a Successful Virtual Hiring Event
- Everything You Need to Know About Recruitment Marketing
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