Goodbye, Old-School Recruiting!
Inbound recruiting originated in marketing and is considered a new, modern form of talent acquisition. To many, human resources and recruiting initially sound like a quick and simple business process: the company needs staff, a job ad is posted, and at the end of the application process, the most qualified applicant is chosen.
But when it comes to talent acquisition, you quickly realize that the topic is highly complex and multifaceted — especially today. In today’s blog post, we want to introduce you to inbound recruiting. In the age of online media and digitalization, strategic methods from sales and marketing should also be brought in to secure your competitive advantages in a contested market.
In times of skilled labor shortages, it is becoming increasingly difficult for a company’s HR management to hire qualified talent who can provide effective support. This is where the principle of inbound recruiting comes in.
When inbound recruiting is implemented consistently, the result is added value for both sides: you increase the appeal of your employer brand and receive qualified applicants. Applicants, in turn, gain diverse insights that make it easier for them to choose you as an employer and allow them to assess cultural fit in advance.
Outbound vs. Inbound
As an introduction to this extensive yet fascinating topic, we compare outbound and inbound marketing methods today. After all, recruiting increasingly resembles a targeted marketing strategy.
How Do Outbound and Inbound Methods Differ?
In short: inbound and outbound marketing differ fundamentally. While outbound relies on so-called PUSH factors, inbound favors PULL factors. In outbound marketing, PUSH factors are meant to maximize reach among users. For example, TV commercials or banner ads highlight a company’s products or services in order to reach as many users as possible. For recruiters, this means attracting as many leads (applicants) as possible for the company. Methods such as cold outreach, mass emails or trade fairs are used in particular to attract prospects. However, an important point is underestimated: like the economy as a whole, this industry is subject to a dynamic process and constant change, to which one should ideally adapt. So do outbound marketing measures still make sense in the age of online media?
Outbound marketing measures are quickly identified as pure advertising. Many people are now oversaturated with advertising and unconsciously tune it out. As a result, promotional emails — for example, ones introducing a company — are not even opened or are immediately moved to the trash. Naturally, this means reach is not increased as intended. Costs and effort rise while the actual benefit falls by the wayside.
“We need to stop interrupting what people are interested in and be what people are interested in.” Craig Davis (former Chief Creative Officer at J. Walter Thompson).
Inbound marketing relies on targeted outreach to a predefined target group. The related practice of inbound recruiting works in a similar way. In this case, the target group consists of applicants. The first step is essential: define a so-called candidate persona. In other words, a kind of profile sketch of your ideal applicant. It includes both professional and personal components: attitudes, qualifications, goals, needs or interests are just a few examples. Each additional component helps you build an increasingly clear picture of the applicants you are looking for, i.e., your target group. With the help of the candidate persona, you can then proceed more selectively and implement more precisely tailored employer branding, marketing and HR measures. It also helps to know how best to reach your candidate persona online. Try to put yourself in the persona’s shoes and ask yourself which online media they might use. Because if you know your target group, you can tailor your content precisely to it.
In addition, the following inbound components can systematically change your recruiting strategies and strengthen your company in terms of content, SEO and social media.
Inbound Marketing Components
What is behind this approach? Why is it promising, how does it work, and what do you need to implement it in your company? The three marketing components Content → ←SEO → ←Social Media are closely interrelated and enable you to implement inbound recruiting in a goal-oriented way.
Content
High-quality content is the most important task of inbound marketing, as it focuses on creating and distributing valuable and consistent content. The aim is to convince the target group — or, in inbound recruiting, the candidate persona — of your offering, to find new prospects and to retain existing ones.
"But how do I create valuable content?"
Create your own company blog where you write relevant and useful posts and share them on online platforms. Your topics should be clear and concise and ideally presented creatively. Bring your blog to life: a mix of your own posts in the form of how-to guides, white papers or videos works best. Interactions with other companies can also offer mutual benefits. An added benefit: at the same time, you strengthen your employer brand. When posts are interesting and, above all, useful, users will return to your blog again and again, ideally like and share your posts, and automatically increase your company’s reach.
First, however, the content must be relevant from the perspective of search engines in order to be found by users at all (SEO).
SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
In German, it is called Suchmaschinenoptimierung. In a broader sense, it means: "Measures to increase visibility in the organic — i.e., unpaid — search results of search engines."
As the possibilities of online media continue to evolve, users have become more demanding and simply have a free choice among highly competitive providers. Due to ever-increasing competition in many industries, it is more important than ever to be found in search engines and to establish your employer brand.
What does this have to do with inbound recruiting? - A lot! Because your website and company blog serve as a strategic mouthpiece between users and the company. Unlike traditional marketing, online marketing is measurable, and SEO offers the major advantage of sustainably attracting new visitors — and thus candidates.
"Anyone who wants to use inbound successfully should understand Google."
Take measures that help your homepage, website or company blog — and, of course, their content — appear in the top positions of organic search engine rankings. SEO is particularly suited to reaching users with a clear intent at exactly the right moment: when they are searching for something specific! To reach your target group through organic search traffic, you need to know and understand the questions searchers have and the words (keywords) they use in search engines. These search terms are identified through keyword research. The result of this process is a grouped list of search terms and phrases, ranked by monthly search volume, on which the structure and content of the website (landing page) or an entire domain should be built, created and optimized.
The key strategic goal of SEO is therefore to generate impressions and clicks with the right keywords and keyword combinations and to increase conversions. To do so, you should know your own target groups and specific objectives and always keep them in focus.
Social Media
Precise distribution via blogs and social media is an important building block of any content distribution strategy. The principle of seeding naturally takes place in social media. It involves the systematic distribution of content on the internet. Use the channels you are active on and share valuable content regularly. Xing, LinkedIn, Twitter and others offer ideal platforms to increase your reach.
From the wealth of available channels, choose those where your candidate personas spend their time and create a professional profile for your company. With inbound recruiting, you target selected, active candidates more precisely and can build closeness and trust with locally relevant topics. This allows you to present your company attractively and generate leads efficiently.
Candidate Journey
From Qualified New Hire to Loyal Employee
To attract top-qualified candidates for open positions, it is important for companies to adapt and further develop traditional recruiting processes. As mentioned above, times are changing in HR recruiting too, and it has long been the case that not only potential candidates apply to the company: the employer also applies to the candidates. The so-called candidate journey consists of various touchpoints between candidates and the company. These touchpoints must be clearly structured by HR marketing and given attention according to their degree of relevance (see figure).
With the candidate journey process, you change your own perspective and view the application process through the eyes of the applicants. This gives a company’s recruiters insight into which platforms potential candidates use to learn about vacancies and companies. It also helps identify points of contact and connection for communicating with potential candidates. Messages are placed exactly where prospective candidates can be reached.
Efficient design of touchpoints along the candidate journey for “early employer branding.”
According to the model, the main goal for companies is to create positive branding even before the active job search begins. What sounds simple in theory is not so easy to implement in practice. This is where HR marketing can step in, using well-structured touchpoints to draw job seekers’ interest to your company and establish initial points of contact. As mentioned in the previous sections, you have many options: from your company website to social media networks, everything is possible. You just have to use them correctly. For more input on these topics, feel free to read our blog posts "The Relevance of Career Networks" and "The Perfect Careers Page".
In summary, the candidate journey is an important part of successful HR marketing and should be at the center of the entire recruiting process. From the first step, "attraction," to step 6, "retention," and beyond, all touchpoints between candidates and the company should provide a positive and motivating experience.
What Can You Take Away from This Post?
Outbound marketing methods such as mass emails and advertising are often no longer targeted. In the age of online media and digitalization, strategic methods from sales and marketing should also be brought in. Against the backdrop of demographic change and the growing shortage of skilled workers, recruiting is increasingly becoming a task for specialists who must refine targeted planning and processes and adapt to external changes. Inbound recruiting follows the same principle.
Influential inbound components such as content marketing, SEO and a social media presence support your systematic and goal-oriented inbound recruiting processes.
Another process worth mentioning that builds on inbound recruiting is so-called recruitment process outsourcing. Here, the talent acquisition process is partially or fully outsourced to an external service provider.
First, however, it is especially important to know your own objectives and, above all, your target groups before you can apply inbound recruiting methods meaningfully and, above all, purposefully in your company.
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