Social Recruiting Content Strategies – Direct Recruitment v Niche Agency Recruitment

Posted by Colm Hannon on Dec 5, 2012 | 0 comments

Social recruiting Content strategy

The steps direct recruiters and agency recruiters go through to get to creating a social recruiting content strategy are often the same- Setting objectives, identifying resources, mapping current processes, analysing and understanding their audiences but, when it comes to the content strategy then this is where the content differs and let me explain how.

Niche Agency Recruiters Content Strategy

Regardless of their sector, niche agency recruiters have to publish and share online content that engages the audience and that their audiences find interesting but beyond that their content plan is based on linking the content to two areas:

1. What they know about recruitment in their specialist area.

2. Who they know in their sector

Number one seems obvious but there is a difference between demonstrating what you know about recruitment and demonstrating what you know about recruitment in your niche area of expertise. That is why expert direct recruiters use niche agency recruiters because for certain hard to fill roles direct recruiters sometimes lack that industry knowledge and the contacts and connections to convince top talent to move. When creating content around what you know about recruitment in your niche sector you can create what we call content clusters which are clusters of content tagged in the right way so that when employers or candidates are looking for specialist recruiters in your area of expertise your content clusters have catapulted you to the top of the online conversational search space that you wish to dominate.

Number two is simple, get the clients and candidates that you have good relationships to discuss the industry challenges or opportunities that most interest your target talent or target talent. If you are sourcing actuaries and you film one of the leading company’s top actuaries where he or she is discussing the most pressing challenge actuaries have. Then you achieve a few things; you gain credibility by association (borrow brand equity), you demonstrate you know your market and you get engagement with your target audience attracting them to your site with content they are interested in.

Remember that creating content is pointless unless you share it properly and your recruiters know how to use it in online interactions but that is another blog post.

Direct Recruitment Content Strategies

I’m often criticised for simplifying everything but from my experience the direct recruiter’s content strategy can be broken into two areas also:

1. The working at story.

2. How best to get a job with us.

Any employer brand agency reading this will probably be spitting their coffee out across their computer after reading number one but telling the story of the ‘working at story’ is actually pretty simple. Candidates want to understand the projects and challenging work they will get to do. They want to get a feel for the people they’ll be working with and what it is really like to work in the office environment.

Tell the story of what it is like to work there via which ever online format you feel is most appropriate- video, blogs, presentations, audio, images etc. Then share it in the right places, with the right people, in the right way to get interviews with the candidates you want. There may be hundreds or even thousands of stories across your business, so you need a good content strategy and a content schedule to manage this on-going process and it does need to be on-going.

Telling the ‘working at story’ allows you to unleash your secret weapon, your talent. Showcasing your best people is what has the biggest impact online, especially when they are talking about the topics that you know your target audience is most interested in (you should know what they are interested in from doing your audience analysis). The agencies showcase their clients and candidates and direct recruiters showcase their internal talent and their commercial partners in return.

Number two, ‘How best to get a job with us,’ is one that direct recruiters can do much easier than number one but number one is more effective for getting engagement with talent. Remember that direct recruiters know a lot more about the process of getting a job at their company and the things that they and the interviewers look for. They can explain why people don’t get interviews or why they don’t make it through the interview or negotiation process. This is vital information that a candidate wants and that often times an agency recruiter will not know as well as the direct recruiter.

Without the relevant content you will struggle to engage your target talent online so when you finish reading this article look at your content strategy and content schedule and ask if yours is addressing the two areas mentioned above. If you are a recruiter and you don’t have a content schedule that you can open and look at then get in touch and I will arrange for us to help you create one.

Let me know your thoughts on what else should be in your content strategy@ColmHannon