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Recruitment marketers who want to make a real difference to the sales and recruiting process of their businesses need to read these recruitment marketing insights.
Recruitment leaders who are looking to generate more from their marketing function can use Lisa's insights to help them drive marketing ROI.
Vanity v Sanity
Recruitment marketing can often stray into "vanity" world. It's never been easier to "spray and pray" with marketing due to automation and AI. The sheer volume of platforms you can use for recruitment marketing, and the communities you can access and attract, can keep even the most well-intended marketer too busy to generate ROI.
But with 69% of online content never even being read, and the vast majority of emails never being responded to, it's never been more important to be targeted with your recruitment marketing and focus on the sanity!
Lisa has done a lot of work with recruiters over the years helping them shape their recruitment marketing strategies, so I made her a rare coffee and asked her 9 questions about recruitment marketing ROI.
9 Questions I Asked Lisa About Recruitment Marketing ROI
1. What is the Function of Recruitment Marketing?
Crucially to attract, engage, convert, and retain your 3Cs – candidates, clients, colleagues.
And to help your sales and recruiting teams turn them into the 4th C – cash!
2. What is the Number 1 Benefit of Recruitment Marketing?
Leads (candidate and client) are key...
But often the expectations of what recruitment marketing can do are too low and KPIs are mistakenly around followers, impressions, blogging… The benefits of recruitment marketing need to be SANE not VANE.
3. How Should You Measure ROI on Recruitment Marketing?
Stick to “sanity stats”: Leads generated. Relevant subscribers signed up. Automation click throughs. Don’t not be fooled by people telling you that it’s difficult to measure ROI in recruitment marketing.
4. What is the Difference Between Outbound and Inbound Recruiting?
It is the difference between the more traditional approaches to marketing (email marketing / events) and digital (social / web). Push and pull!
It’s all about whether you’re interrupting someone’s day with your messages or whether they perceive that they initiate the contact.
The key to successful recruitment marketing, whether it be in or out bound, is that the candidate / client feels that they are the initiator... But actually the marketer has stealthily exposed the candidate's / client’s and drove them to click / call you.
5. Is Recruitment Marketing Only for Large Companies?
All recruitment companies need recruitment marketing.
And every recruiter needs to be a recruitment marketer in some way. (Another blog for another day...)
6. What’s the Number 1 Pitfall in Recruitment Marketing?
Too much content, not enough marketing! And too much marketing, not enough sales!
7. What's Your Number 1 Hack for Content in Recruitment Marketing?
69% of content is never even seen, so wasting time creating new content, especially in the current market, is nuts!
Repurpose old content. Repurpose other people's content.
Create blogs out of blogs eg. "3 Insights We Found Online That Every Accountant Needs to Read this Week"
And if you really need to create your own content, ask your recruiters to ask the right questions on their screening and sales calls and then craft insightful blogs to attract and engage your community. eg...
What 's the best tech every teacher uses to create lesson plans?
How do you think AI will affect your job in the next 5 years?
How has your legal firm been affected by WFH?
8. What is the Recruitment Marketer’s Essential Tech Stack?
You can get lost in the tech, but as a starter I'd suggest:
Trello for planning.
Google Analytics for website ROI.
Bullhorn Automation (if you have Bullhorn).
An SEO toolkit like SEMRush/AHRefs to turbo boost content – and Keywords Everywhere is flipping awesome!
Speedy video and image software such as Canva to "stretch" content – remember, “less content, more marketing!”
9. How Can Focus Your Time and Attention and Not Stray into Vanity Territory?
Plus, I say to my clients who are looking to hire / get more from marketing and need focused revenue-generating outputs.
“Imagine if your recruitment marketer had only 1 hour a day to make a real difference, what should they do? Then times that by 7 and that’s the job spec”.
Often recruitment marketers spend too long doing things that people have asked them to do that offer no real value to recruitment and sales. Stay focussed on the WIIFMB - what's in it for my business?
Bullhorn ATS / Analytics / Automation / AI RoI
We are Bullhorn experts set on helping ambitious recruitment businesses to increase speed and sales.
We help you weaponise your people, data, time, and tech, so you can recruit and sell!
Our Bullhorn Vision and Buddy service helps generate best-in-class processes, adoption, head space, and ROI.
BOOK A FREE BULLHORN ROI CONSULTATION
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Lisa Jones
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Vodcast: Rehumanising Recruitment ~ Recruiters Versus Tech
I recently had the absolute pleasure of sitting down with a true recruitment "myth and legend," Keith Southern.For those who don't know Keith, he was the seventh person to join Progressive - the company that eventually became the global powerhouse S3.With a career spanning back to the early 90s, he has seen it all: the highs, the recessions, and the technological revolutions.Today, Keith leads The Power Hive, a community of over 170 recruitment leaders dedicated to helping agency owners move from just working in their business to working on it.Over a speedy 19minutes, we dove deep into why the "old school" ways, coupled with data, automation, and AI, might actually be the key to every recruitment leaders' future.Beyond ROI: The Power of "Return on Effort"We started by discussing a concept close to both of our hearts: Return on Effort (ROE). In an industry obsessed with the next shiny recruitment tech tool, many recruitment leaders are accidentally building what we called "Frankenstein tech stacks" - collections of expensive tools and data that don't talk to each other and often create "integration debt" and more admin than they solve. (I call this "Admin Tax".)We talked about how many sales floors today are eerily quiet because recruiters are hiding behind CRMs and marketing tech instead of picking up the phone, and Kevin's ideas for:Using recruitment tech to free your consultants up to have more human conversations (and removing the "admin tax").Auditing your tech stack to see if you’re actually using what you’re paying for, or whether you're actually in "integration debt".Turning Old Data into GoldOne of the most striking parts of our conversation was about the "gold nuggets" sitting right under our noses. Your "old to gold" could be data, processes, tech, people...Keith argues that most agencies already have 95% of the data they need in their own CRM, yet they continue to spend a fortune on expensive external job boards and LinkedIn licenses.We discussed "rehumanising" the process by using technology to lift the heavy weights so that recruiters can focus on building resilience and genuine relationships.We chatted about how to:Preventing your recruiters heading straight to LinkedIn / Job Boards to resource instead of looking "back home" at your own database.Training your recruiters to master the fundamental tasks, like a perfect candidate interview prep, before moving to the next part of the process.Are You the Recruiter Your Website Says You Are?We ended with a challenge for the industry. Many agencies claim to be "at the heart of their sector" on their websites, but the reality is often a messy database and a reliance on reactive advertising. Keith’s advice for this year is simple: stop the abdication to technology and start driving your business with strategy again.This vodcast was a masterclass in recruitment leadership. Watch it to hear more about Keith's "war stories" from the S3 days and how to weaponise the data, systems, and people you already have.Ready to put the world to rights with us? Watch the full 19minute vodcast now.Bullhorn ATS / Analytics / Automation / AI RoIWe are Bullhorn experts set on helping ambitious recruitment businesses to increase speed and sales.We help you weaponise your people, data, time, and tech, so you can recruit and sell!Our Bullhorn Vision and Buddy service helps generate best-in-class processes, adoption, head space, and ROI.BOOK A FREE BULLHORN ROI CONSULTATION
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Lisa Jones
Blog
Are Hairdressers Putting Your Recruitment Business at Risk?
Many recruitment leaders I work with want their recruitment CRM to generate fees, but often recruiters are all too happy to jump back into spreadsheets, LinkedIn, notebooks and “going by memory” rather than use their CRM system properly. This blog is a quick 3-minute read to create some perspective and give you some ideas for a “CRMFirst” strategy.The above results in a nightmare for recruitment leaders who are looking to grow their business, become “GDPR-proof”, use AI, Analytics, and Automation to be more efficient and productive, and of course become more profitable.It above also results in a problem I call “Hairdresser Syndrome” – a term I’ve used for many years to describe a recruitment business that needs to get a grip on its processes and data to see real growth and ROI.(Note: I originally wrote this blog in 2018. Many years have passed and so much has happened to recruitment, but I've barely needed to update this content...)Do You Have a Recruitment Firm, or an Office Full of Desks For Rent?I have been with my hairdresser for 8 years. He knows my taste in magazines, some of my secrets and all of my roots. A few years ago he was based in a large salon in the city, where he rented a chair.The rest of the salon staff barely knew I was there, and I didn’t really notice them either – zero interaction. Perhaps if I was lucky my hair would be washed by one of the juniors. I’d pay the girl at the till on the way out, but my hairdresser was my only real contact at the salon.One day he very quietly commented that he was opening his own salon, and would I like to move with him? I bit his hand off – why wouldn’t I? I had no relationship with the salon. They kept no details on me, perhaps they didn’t even know I existed. Would they miss my business?For me, he was the salon.Are Your Recruiters Hairdressers?Can you see any similarities between your recruitment consultants and my hair dresser?They have exclusive relationships with the clients. Are you simply the “girl” taking my money at the till?Do they use stuff in your business, such as hair washers, tea makers, reception (IT, HR, Finance, Admin) that their fees contribute to, but that I am totally oblivious to?Are your consultants simply logging data at the point of sale to get the cash in but the juicy stuff which is about me, what I like, how I buy is in his/her head?If they left and took “clients” with them, would you know? And don’t forget you’ll only know what data they’ve taken and who’s migrated with them if they told you about these relationships in the first place.Even if you had the data on the client, would it be enough for you to continue the relationship going forward?Are your clients engaging with your business or the consultant? Are their loyalties to the brand or their perceived face of the brand, the consultant (the hairdresser)?I’m still seeing “30-second recruiters” who enter a candidate in the CRM just to place them and board the invoice. That may work for them in the short term, but they’re missing out on opportunities to be more effective and profitable whilst putting the business at risk.CRMFirst (Bullhorn1st): Hairdresser Prevention for Recruitment LeadersThis year needs to be about CRMFirst ~ Bullhorn1st ~ getting your candidates, clients and consultants addicted to your systems.It needs to be about data hygiene, recruiters building effective, retained relationships and recruitment firms focusing on effectiveness and growth.A CRMFirst (BullhornFirst) culture can create a valuable pool of great data that will put you ahead of your competition and create a hidden asset that your clients (and prospective clients!) want access to.Your recruitment CRM should be a USP – a unique selling point. Your recruitment software can be an addiction for your recruiters, your clients, candidates, and investors. All of which does the one job you bought it for – to make your life easier and make you more money.Swap the Salon Culture for CRMFirst Culture…Instilling a culture of data quality is challenging, but highly rewarding. Define the strategy, instil this into your culture and reduce the risk of bad data impacting the recruitment business.Get your recruitment consultants engaged with your system and train them on best practice so they understand why great recruitment process is profitable for them, as well as your business.📌Stop them from simply renting a desk.Once they can see and feel the benefits of following your processes (improving performance, profit, and ROI for themselves as well as the business) then your CRM can become a business growth tool, rather than an expensive data dump.Bullhorn ATS / Analytics / Automation / AI RoIWe are Bullhorn experts set on helping ambitious recruitment businesses to increase speed and sales.We help you weaponise your people, data, time, and tech, so you can recruit and sell!Our Bullhorn Vision and Buddy service helps generate best-in-class processes, adoption, head space, and ROI.BOOK A FREE BULLHORN ROI CONSULTATION
