You’re not alone.

We know that you just consider yourself as being bloody good at what you do. Not a rockstar, ninja or guru.

Marketing, in particular, seems to be rife with buzzwords and while some have merit, others definitely fall into the ‘WTF’ category.

So to shed light on the bullshit, we scraped over 1,000 live marketing jobs from LinkedIn and Indeed to find out which buzzwords are being used the most.

We also looked at the company benefits included in each advert to reveal what recruiters are choosing to share with potential candidates and what they’re leaving out.

Spoiler, less than half of the marketing job adverts include any mention of salary – mind-blowing!

Read on below to find out the full results.

The Cringey Buzzwords Most Commonly Used in Marketing Job Ads

You have to be laser-focused. Pardon?

‘Wear many hats’, but there is never any mention of what type.

Oooooh, ‘synergy’.

The recruitment is full of ridiculous buzzwords that cause even the most qualified to scratch their heads. It leaves candidates wondering what the job actually requires of them and can even result in them not applying despite being the right fit.

At The Marketists, we have no time for it.

It’s not what we stand for so we thought we’d pull the curtain back on the most cringeworthy buzzwords used in marketing job adverts.

The top five buzzwords used in marketing job adverts include:

• Communication skills – 31.27% of job ads
• Driven - 28.56% of job ads
• Flexible - 26.59% of job ads
• Dynamic - 26.40% of job ads
• Proactive - 23.31% of job ads

Descriptive phrases like ‘team player’ and ‘self-starter’ ranked in the top 20 most used buzzwords in marketing job ads, along with other cringe-inducing cliches like ‘hands-on’ and ‘work under pressure’.

It’s often counterintuitive too, and can undermine the genuine appeal of the role with phrases like ‘rockstar’ and ‘ninja’ seeming insincere.

We know that fluffy jargon like the above can also affect the clarity of job descriptions and confuse job hunters. This can, in turn, discourage top talent from applying for positions - so cut the crap!

Instead focus on clearly outlining what the job entails, the skills required and the benefits and opportunities for candidates. For more tips, read our blog post about why your marketing job adverts aren't attracting the best talent.

You’ll thank us later.

The Corporate Acronyms Most Commonly Used in Marketing Job Ads

They’re designed to speed things up but often, these shortcuts just cause so much confusion that it takes job hunters a long old while to work out what they mean.

In fact, Google searches for ‘What is a CRM?’ see volumes of over 100,000 each month worldwide. 

So, let’s break it down.

The top five corporate acronyms used in marketing job adverts include:

• CRM - 13.95% of job ads
• ROI - 10.77% of job ads
• SaaS - 4.68% of job ads
• CMS - 4.40% of job ads
• DOE - 2.53% of job ads

We don’t want to be one of ‘those people’ either so we’ve done a little breakdown of each of the acronyms we analysed below.

Corporate Acronyms Breakdown

• C-Suite - A company's top management positions where C stands for ‘chief’ i.e. CEO, CFO, etc. 
• CAC - ‘Customer acquisition cost’ measures how much an organisation spends to acquire new customers.
• CAD - This stands for Computer-Aided Design, which involves using software to create, modify and optimise designs and is commonly used in engineering, architecture and manufacturing.
• CIM - The ‘Chartered Institute of Marketing’ is a professional body that represents tens of thousands of members.
• CMS - A ‘content management system’ is an application that helps create, organise and store media and other files for use on websites. 
• COE - A physical or virtual ‘centre of knowledge’ that encompasses existing expertise and resources in a discipline or industry.
• CPA - ‘Cost per acquisition/action’ refers to the fee a company will pay for a marketing advertisement that results in a sale.
• CPD - This refers to Continuous Professional Development through the CIM to help marketers stay current with industry trends and best practices.
• CRM - Customer Relationship Management software helps businesses manage and analyse interactions and data throughout the customer lifecycle. 
• CX - This encompasses all of the interactions a customer has with a company, influencing their overall perception and satisfaction - ‘Customer Experience’.
• DOE - An acronym (‘Depending on Experience’) that indicates salary or compensation is based on the candidate’s experience level.
• ESG - This criteria evaluates a company’s environmental, social and governance impact.
• FTC - A fixed-term contract is an agreement between an employer and employee that ends on a set date. 
• GDPR - The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is an EU law that regulates data protection and privacy for individuals within the European Union.
• KPI - This refers to Key Performance Indicators, which are measurable values used to evaluate the success of organisations, teams and individuals.
• POC - Proof of concept is a demonstration that verifies certain concepts or theories have the potential for real-world application.
• POS - An acronym for ‘Point of Sale’ that refers to the place and system where retail transactions are completed.
• ROI - Return on Investment measures the gain or loss generated on an investment relative to the money invested.
• ROAS - This measures the ‘return on ad spend’, i.e. the revenue generated per pound spent on advertising.
• SaaS - ‘Software as a Service’ refers to delivering software applications on a subscription basis.

The Company Benefits Most Commonly Mentioned in Marketing Job Ads

Finally, but definitely by no means, least - company benefits.

Actually, the company benefits are probably the most important part of the job description.

No one is going to apply to a job advert that meticulously details the challenging requirements but fails to mention how they’d be looked after or what they’d be paid, are they?

That’s why we have scrapped over 1,000 marketing adverts for typical company benefits including parental leave, pensions, and wellbeing initiatives to see how many include these things.

Because we work in the industry, we also looked at ‘vibey’ company perks commonly associated with marketing such as dogs in the office and ping pong tables and compared these to the things that are actually important.

Key findings

• More job adverts mention company parties (12.45%) than they do health insurance/plans (7.96%), which indicates that many recruiters are under the impression that socialising is more important to job candidates than medical care.
• Having a dog-friendly office is mentioned more in job adverts than the phrase ‘personal growth’ - bizarre.
• Parental leave is mentioned in less than a fifth (18.27%) of marketing job adverts, despite around 70% of the industry being of child-bearing age.

How often is salary included in marketing job adverts?

Let’s not beat around the bush. Candidates want to know how much they will be paid.

Put. The. Salary. On. The. Advert.

Please.

Our research shows that more than 10% of marketing job adverts still use phrases like ‘competitive salary’ and ‘salary dependent on experience’. 

And just under half (49%) don’t mention it in the job advert at all. Mind-blowing!

It’s important because you could be missing out on top talent if you don’t include it.

A recent LinkedIn survey showed that 91% of job applicants said that including salary ranges in a job post would affect their decision to apply.

Methodology

We scraped over 1,000 live marketing jobs from LinkedIn and Indeed to find out which buzzwords, corporate acronyms and company benefits are being used the most.

We compiled the lists of these things from reputable online articles and insider knowledge.

Data is correct as of June 2024.

Expanding your business and trying to attract high-performing applicants? The Marketists is a specialist marketing recruitment business that can help you find the most suitable candidates for the role. Contact us to hear more about our services or check out our other articles to learn more.  

The post The Most Common Buzzwords Used In Marketing Job Adverts appeared first on The Marketists.

That’s where psychometric tests come in. Integrating psychometric testing into the recruitment process is a complete game-changer. These assessments provide you with invaluable insights into candidates’ abilities, personality traits, and cultural fit – beyond what it says on their resume.

This provides you with the crucial information needed to evaluate a candidate’s potential success within your organisation, considering not just their skills and experience but also their mindset, personality, and aspirations.

If you want to find the most talented individuals in the field who will stay long-term and make a real impact, these assessments are a must. In this article, we’re going to delve into what a psychometric test is, the various types of psychometric tests available and the benefits they offer during the hiring process. 

What is Psychometric Testing in Recruitment?

Let’s get straight to it: what are psychometric tests and what do they have to do with recruitment? Psychometric tests are assessments designed to analyse a candidate’s competency, skills and overall reasoning, providing insights into their intelligence, abilities, potential, and general characteristics.

Employers use these tests to gain a deeper understanding of applicants’ suitability for a job, as well as the company as a whole. The assessments often come in the format of self-report questionnaires and performance ability tests.

However, there are various types of psychometric tests tailored to analyse different aspects of a candidate.  Key areas of assessment include logical skills, problem-solving abilities, numerical data analysis, and factual interpretation. 

By evaluating these fundamental areas, you gain valuable insights into a candidate’s thought processes, attitudes and behaviours that would otherwise remain unknown. This enables you to discover top-tier talent who will succeed in your company and seamlessly align with its values.

Types of Psychometric Tests in Recruitment

Now you’re clear on what psychometric testing is, let’s move on to the versions on offer. With a fair few options to choose from, you might be wondering where to begin with incorporating these assessments into your hiring process. Explore the different types of psychometric testing used in recruitment below to uncover the perfect match for your needs and supercharge your recruitment stage.

Personality Tests

Personality tests are one of the most common psychometric tests for jobs. These aim to gain an understanding of the applicant’s characteristic variables such as their motivations, values, weaknesses, strengths, communication preferences and leadership potential. 

By identifying these traits, personality psychometric tests indicate how candidates will behave within the workplace. This allows you to make an informed decision about whether they are a good fit for the role and the business. 

Popular examples of personality psychometric tests include the DISC assessment test and the Myers-Briggs Personality Test.

Aptitude Tests

Otherwise known as ability tests, this option identifies cognitive capabilities by assessing critical thinking and numerical, verbal, thinking and logical skills. The purpose of this type of psychometric test is to evaluate a candidate’s potential to acquire certain skills or knowledge.

Numerical Skills Tests

Numerical skills tests consist of mathematical assessments. This type of psychometric test may be relevant to you if you are hiring for roles in niche areas of marketing that require candidates to be talented in this specific area, such as marketing managers or sales executives.

9 Benefits of Psychometric Testing for Marketing Hires

With various psychometric test options swirling in your mind, it’s time to explore their benefits. Let’s dive into the advantages they offer for marketing hires.

1. Recruitment Process Efficiency

Including a psychometric test in marketing recruitment can be a highly effective way to streamline the hiring process. You can screen applicants for specific traits and skills that you are looking for from new employees. 

You can save time by narrowing the talent pool to those with the particular aptitudes and behavioural traits you’re looking for. Doing this before the interview stage can be an especially effective way to boost the efficiency of the recruitment process.

Many digital marketing psychometric tests are readily available online. This makes evaluating responses a breeze as the answers are easy to access and analyse.

2. Selection Objectivity and Fairness

Another of the key benefits of psychometric testing is its ability to foster selection objectivity and fairness. By incorporating a well-researched assessment you bring structure to the selection process, promoting increased fairness and transparency.

In situations where companies solely rely on unstructured interviews without psychometric testing, assessments, deductions, and decisions can be swayed by subjective opinions and assumptions.  This can lead to high-performing applicants missing out on the role due to prejudice and human error. 

You do not get this bias in psychometric testing. Instead, candidates are evaluated based on a standardised set of parameters, which ensures equal opportunities as all candidates are measured on the same scale.

3. Cultural Fit Assessment

Using psychometric testing for marketing hires allows you to delve beyond technical skills and access and gain a nuanced understanding of a candidate’s alignment with the organisation’s culture. This includes values, work ethics, and interpersonal dynamics within the marketing team. 

By evaluating cultural fit, organisations can ensure a harmonious integration of new hires, promoting a positive work environment that enhances collaboration and overall team effectiveness. This holistic approach to cultural alignment contributes significantly to employee satisfaction, retention, and the overall success of the company.

4. Tailored Skill Evaluation

Another of the key advantages of psychometric testing is that it provides a sophisticated means of evaluating a candidate’s marketing skills as you can tailor assessments to test for skills that specifically align with the skills demanded in the marketing field. From communication and strategic thinking to analytical prowess and adaptability, these assessments can effectively identify candidates who exemplify the specific skills required for the role.

By pinpointing specific strengths and areas for improvement, employers gain valuable insights into a candidate’s potential contributions to marketing campaigns, market research, and brand development. This tailored approach not only informs hiring decisions but also facilitates targeted professional development. 

It also ensures that marketing teams are staffed with individuals possessing the precise skill set required for the industry, along with additional talents or areas for development that could benefit the business.

5. Improved Team Dynamics

Psychometric testing plays a crucial role in building effective marketing teams by uncovering individual strengths, communication styles, and collaborative tendencies. With this insight, organisations can purposefully assemble teams that bring together diverse skills and personalities, creating a dynamic and creative workplace. 

By understanding how team members work best together, leaders can improve collaboration, assign tasks strategically, and foster an environment that appreciates each member’s unique contributions. This focused approach enhances overall team efficiency, promotes innovation, and equips the team to navigate complex marketing challenges with greater success.

6. Enhanced Employee Engagement and Job Satisfaction

Psychometric testing significantly contributes to increased employee engagement and job satisfaction among new hires. These assessments delve into candidates’ unique strengths, motivations, preferences, and personality traits.

This provides organisations with vital information about what drives each applicant. Consequently, psychometric tests arm companies with crucial insights that enable them to select candidates whose own personal abilities, motivations and interests align seamlessly with the demands of the role.

Moreover, when there’s flexibility within the company, organisations can leverage this information to strategically place new hires in positions based on their personal interests and preferences. Consequently, companies can ensure that employees find themselves in roles that resonate with them on a personal level.

This targeted approach goes a long way in enhancing job satisfaction, as employees feel more fulfilled and passionate about their roles. This heightened satisfaction, in turn, has a positive impact on engagement and motivation levels, prompting employees to work more diligently and become committed, valuable members of the team.

7. Identification of Leadership Potential

Another reason why companies use psychometric testing is that it can be extremely helpful for identifying leadership potential.  Personality tests can be particularly useful for this. They can discern qualities like decisiveness, resilience, and compassion in applicants. 

In doing so, psychometric tests can highlight candidates who embody the desirable traits for effective leadership. This process assists in securing hires with the potential to advance within the company as needed.

It ensures a strategic alignment between sought-after leadership qualities and the selected candidates, thereby nurturing a leadership pipeline that contributes to the organisation’s long-term success.

8. Continuous Development Opportunities

The advantages of psychometric assessments extend beyond hiring, providing practical insights for ongoing professional growth. As the tests identify strengths and weaknesses, they pinpoint key areas to work on and to make the most of. 

This information enables you to fine-tune and tailor training, mentorship, and career plans to help candidates succeed in the most effective way possible. This will not only propel individual careers but elevate the success of your marketing company as a whole.

9. Boost Retention

Reports show that the cost of a bad hire is about three times higher than the salary paid. So, you’re best equipping yourself with as much relevant information as possible to make informed decisions when taking on new team members.

Psychometric testing provides insights into applicants’ intelligence, strengths and potential shortfalls, all of which can indicate the likelihood of them succeeding in a role. Additionally, these assessments provide a glimpse into candidates’ personalities and values, helping you assess whether they are likely to feel passionate and fulfilled in the role and the organisation.

When employees feel satisfied and successful in their roles, they are more likely to stay with the company for the long term. Therefore, having psychometric tests in place to ensure the right fit from the start can significantly contribute to higher retention rates.

How to Implement Psychometric Testing for Recruitment

Now you know the advantages of psychometric testing in recruitment, you may be wondering how to integrate these assessments into your hiring process. 

Firstly, you should identify what your priorities are. For example, if you’re seeking a psychometric test for a marketing manager role, you may wish to include a personality assessment to identify leadership qualities. 

Once you have decided which tests you want to include, the next stage is to integrate them into the recruitment process at the stage you think will be most beneficial. This may be during the initial screening so you can streamline numbers before the interviews.

Or, you may wish to implement them as a final stage in the recruitment process to make it easier to decide between the strongest applicants. Whenever you decide to implement it, ensure that candidates are informed that it will be part of the process and how the results will be used. 

Do not forget to train any members of the team who will be evaluating the responses to the tests. Ensuring they know how to interpret the answers correctly not only results in more accurate deductions but also ensures a fair and accurate evaluation of candidates.

That being said, one of the easiest and most beneficial ways to embed psychometric testing into the hiring process for marketing companies is by hiring a sector-specific recruitment specialist such as The Marketists. We are experts in identifying qualities and traits that help businesses find the top candidates for positions within the industry. 

Summary

As you can see, integrating psychometric testing can take the recruitment process to new heights in a way that benefits both new hires and the company. From boosting retention to improving team dynamics, the advantages are undeniable. We hope that reading this article has shown you how valuable psychometric testing can be and how you can integrate it into your hiring process to achieve exceptional results.

Expanding your business and trying to attract high-performing applicants? The Marketsits is a specialist marketing recruitment business that can help you find the most suitable candidates for the role. Contact us to hear more about our candidate experience services or check out our other articles to learn more.  Take the next step and sign up for a Free Employer Brand Audit to see how we can help elevate your brand’s appeal to attract the best talent.

The post The Benefits of Psychometric Testing for Marketing Hires appeared first on The Marketists.

Such mistakes do not come cheap, with reports showing that organisations spend $15,000 on a bad hire on average. This includes expenses related to time, resources, onboarding and training.

Making the wrong hire in the marketing industry can also lead to the loss of clients, resulting in additional financial setbacks. With so much at stake during the hiring process, this article shares some advice on how to ensure your job descriptions aren’t impacting your recruitment success. We guide you through why job descriptions are important, what makes a good job description and the common mistakes to avoid.

Why are Job Descriptions Important in Recruitment? 

Job descriptions play a crucial role in the success of growing a company. They attract qualified and motivated candidates who are actively seeking a role with the responsibilities the organisation is hiring for.

They also provide clarity on the role, minimising misunderstandings and aligning the expectations and goals of the company with those of the applicants. Consequently, they ensure the right kind of candidates apply for the role, which ensures that companies have talented employees.

This, in turn, significantly increases the likelihood of successful new employees and, by extension, the company itself. Bad job descriptions, on the other hand, can lead to wrong hires. 

Not only can this end up costing organisations thousands of pounds, but hiring the wrong candidate can also compromise team dynamics and damage the company’s reputation.

Why Your Marketing Job Descriptions Don’t Attract the Best Talent: The 6 Most Common Mistakes

Vague Job Titles

One of the most common mistakes made with marketing job descriptions is using vague job titles. Given the diverse range of roles and niches within the marketing industry, it’s crucial to opt for precise and clear titles.

In doing so, you enhance the chances of attracting qualified candidates with skill sets and expertise that align with the vacancy you are filling and are actively seeking roles that align with these responsibilities.

Lack of Specificity

Another of the most common mistakes made in marketing job descriptions is brushing over details. While you may be focused on giving a brief overview of the role, jobseekers want to know what they’re signing up for when applying for a new job. 

This is especially crucial in marketing, where responsibilities can vary significantly between roles and companies. A description that only includes generic information, leaves potential candidates unclear whether the role or organisation is a good fit for them and, as a result, uncertain if they would like to apply.

Overusing Buzzwords

Using clichéd marketing buzzwords without providing concrete information about the job can be off-putting. Candidates want to know specific details about the role, not just generic terms that every other company is using.

Neglecting to Mention Salary

Omitting salary details in marketing job descriptions is a quick-fire way to compromise candidate trust and transparency. In fact, research shows that this is the top concern for candidates when evaluating job opportunities.

Salary is a crucial bit of information that can determine both whether a candidate wants to apply but also whether it is financially viable for them to do so in their situation. Neglecting to mention the salary in a job description can ultimately waste both the organisation’s and the applicant’s time. 

Candidates may progress through the hiring process only to decline an offer due to salary misalignment. The most effective job descriptions proactively mention the salary, streamlining the hiring process and attracting more engaged and qualified candidates. Transparent job postings in a competitive market can also boost a company’s brand image.

Ignoring SEO

While SEO is integral to digital marketing, it’s not uncommon for professionals in the industry to overlook it when crafting job descriptions. This oversight often leads to the description getting lost in the vast online landscape. Enhancing visibility in search engines can be achieved by strategically incorporating industry-specific keywords into job board postings.

Misunderstanding the Distinction Between Job Ads and Job Descriptions

Many underestimate the difference between job ads and job descriptions. They are two distinct entities with unique purposes within the hiring process. 

A job advertisement is supposed to sell the role and highlight why it offers an attractive opportunity for qualified candidates. A job description, on the other hand, detailed depiction of the daily responsibilities and expectations for the employee. 

While many advertisements include job descriptions to provide applicants with insights into the role, it’s crucial to recognise and clearly articulate the distinct functions of each in the hiring process. This ensures that each stage delivers precisely what the candidate is seeking.

Examples of Marketing Job Descriptions

Position: Marketing Director at Smythe Associates

We are seeking a dynamic and results-driven marketing director to join our growing team. In your role, you will play a crucial role in shaping our brand strategy, driving innovative marketing campaigns, and ensuring the overall success of our marketing initiatives.

Key Responsibilities:

Strategic Planning and Execution:

• Develop and implement comprehensive marketing strategies aligned with the company’s goals and objectives.
• Drive the execution of marketing plans to achieve business targets and enhance brand visibility.
• Harness your creativity to design and disseminate strategies.

Data-Driven Decision Making:

• Utilise data analytics and market research to identify opportunities, track campaign performance, and make informed decisions.
• Continuously assess and adapt marketing strategies based on key performance indicators (KPIs).

Cross-Functional Collaboration:

• Collaborate with cross-functional teams, including Sales, Product Development, and Finance, to ensure cohesive and integrated marketing efforts.
• Foster a collaborative environment that encourages the exchange of ideas and expertise.

Innovative Campaign Development:

• Lead the development of innovative marketing campaigns that resonate with our target audience.
• Stay abreast of industry trends and incorporate cutting-edge marketing techniques into our strategies.
• Immerse yourself in events, from conferences to exhibitions, fostering connections and showcasing our revolutionary solutions.
• Cultivate relationships with key customers

Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, or a related field; MBA is a plus.

Proven experience as a Marketing Director or in a similar senior marketing role.

Strong analytical skills with the ability to translate data into actionable insights.

Excellent communication and leadership skills with a track record of successful team management.

What Sets Us Apart:

At Smythe Associates, we pride ourselves on fostering a culture of creativity, collaboration, and continuous learning. Join our team and be part of an organisation that values innovation and empowers its employees to reach their full potential.

Salary Estimate:

Competitive salary commensurate with experience and qualifications. The salary range for this position is £40,000 to £60,000 annually. The final offer will depend on the candidate’s experience, skills, and overall fit for the role.

Feedback

While the marketing executive job description provides a general overview of the role, it is very vague. The sections could benefit from more specific details. For instance, it would be helpful to specify the types of marketing campaigns, clients or industries the candidate will work on.

The phrase “dynamic and results-driven” is a common buzzword that could apply to an employee working in almost any role within the marketing industry. Replacing it with more specific qualities or achievements that highlight what the candidate needs to succeed in this specific role would be more helpful.

The qualifications section is not very focused. The marketing director job description could be improved by reducing this to only include the critical qualifications and skills required of the candidate. Otherwise, you risk discouraging potential candidates who may excel in the role and have relevant experience or skills but don’t meet every listed requirement.

Position: Marketing Executive at Pinnacle Impact Marketing

Are you a passionate and results-oriented marketing professional looking to make a significant impact in a dynamic and fast-paced environment? Pinnacle Impact Marketing is on the lookout for a Marketing Executive to join our team and play a pivotal role in contributing to the success of our marketing initiatives.

Key Responsibilities:

Campaign Development and Execution:

• Develop and execute marketing campaigns across various channels to drive brand awareness and lead generation.
• Collaborate with cross-functional teams to ensure seamless implementation of marketing strategies.

Content Creation and Management:

• Create compelling and engaging content for digital and traditional platforms.
• Manage content calendars, ensuring timely delivery of high-quality materials aligned with brand messaging.

Data Analysis and Reporting:

• Utilise analytics tools to measure campaign performance and provide insights for continuous improvement.
• Prepare regular reports highlighting key performance indicators and making data-driven recommendations.

Market Research:

• Stay informed about industry trends, market dynamics, and competitor activities to identify opportunities and challenges.
• Translate market insights into actionable strategies to stay ahead in a competitive landscape.

Qualifications:

Bachelor’s degree in Marketing, Business, or a related field.

Proven experience in marketing, with a focus on campaign development and execution.

Strong analytical skills and proficiency in data-driven decision-making.

Excellent written and verbal communication skills.

What We Offer:

• A collaborative and inclusive work environment where your ideas are valued.
• Opportunities for professional development and career growth.
• Competitive salary commensurate with experience.
• Comprehensive benefits package, including health insurance and retirement plans.

Feedback

The description mentions a “collaborative and inclusive work environment,” but it does not say how or why. As a result, the marketing executive job description does not actually tell applicants anything about the company’s culture, values, and team dynamics, simply includes a buzzword. It could be improved by adding more insights into what makes the company a unique and desirable place to work.

The job description doesn’t mention the salary range, which can be a crucial deciding factor for many candidates. It would be better to at least include a salary range.

The job title “Marketing Executive” is rather generic and does not tell applicants what area of marketing the role gives them responsibilities in. Instead, organisations can use more specific titles that better reflect the responsibilities and level of the position. 

For example, “Digital Marketing Specialist” or “Content Marketing Coordinator”.

Summary

Job descriptions in marketing can play an integral role in a company’s success. They have a direct influence over the quality of candidates looking to apply to work in the company.  The best marketing job descriptions ensure the company appeals to those in the industry with the right skills, experience and mindset that the organisation is looking for.

Are you struggling to attract the right candidates for your organisation? The Marketists’ team of marketing recruitment specialists can help you find the brightest candidates for the role. Specialising in marketing recruitment, we know how to find the best and most qualified applicants in the industry. Get in touch to find out more about our candidate experience services or check out our other articles to learn more. 

The post Why Your Marketing Job Descriptions Don’t Attract the Best Talent appeared first on The Marketists.

If you’ve got experience in recruitment, it’s probably a term you’ve heard thrown around before. But if you’re still getting to grips with all the different terminology involved in hiring a marketing team, you might be wondering ‘What is retained search in recruitment?’.

There are a range of different approaches to recruitment used in the industry, and retained recruitment is the model that we at The Marketists prefer. In this article, we’re going to discuss why we’re a retained recruitment agency, what this process involves and what the benefits are.

What is Retained Recruitment?

Retained recruitment is an approach that involves an agency or a recruiter being paid an upfront fee to work with a company to fill a role. A recruiter will use their agency’s existing candidate pool and other sourcing methods to find a candidate that meets the employer’s requirements, often taking the time to properly understand the role requirements and company culture.

This isn’t the traditional method of recruitment, which we’ll discuss in a moment, but it is becoming increasingly popular in today’s job market where talented candidates are harder to source and workplace culture fit is more of a priority for employers. Retained recruitment services also tend to be used more for executive search, as these positions require more qualified and experienced candidates.

Contingency vs Retained Recruitment: What’s the Difference?

Contingency recruitment is a ‘traditional’ approach to recruitment that used to be the norm in the industry. It involved recruiters only being paid for their services when they placed a candidate, which bred an approach to hiring that prioritised speed over quality.

With a contingency recruitment approach, companies receive a shortlist of candidates that have come from recruiters wanting to be the first to respond to the request to fill a role. These candidates will likely not have been thoroughly screened and may be totally unsuitable for the role.

Retained recruitment differs from continuous recruitment here because the candidates shortlisted for an employer will have been handpicked for the specific role. There’s no incentive to be ‘first’ to find someone to fill the position and no competition from other recruiters, so whilst efficiency is still considered, more attention is given to understanding the role requirements and finding a potential employee that will fit in well with the existing team.

Contingency recruitment may give employers a list of potential candidates sooner, but sifting through this list of applicants can be a time-consuming and ultimately unsuccessful process. Hiring through a contingency model could also mean that you end up giving the role to somebody unsuitable, which can cost your company a lot of money and waste your time.

The difference with retained recruitment is that, whilst the sourcing process might be more thorough, you end up with a shortlist of much higher-quality candidates. This saves a lot of time as screening has already been completed and candidates who are hired are more likely to integrate quickly and start delivering value sooner than someone less suitable.

So when it comes to contingency vs retained recruitment, the differences are quite stark. The way in which recruiters are compensated completely changes the approach, and we believe that the retained recruitment model leads to better quality recruitment.

Our Retained Recruitment Process

At The Marketists, we wanted to do recruitment differently to save marketing companies the hassle and disappointment of chasing the wrong kinds of candidates. This is why we’ve based our hiring approach on the retained recruitment model, ensuring that only the best candidates are recommended to our clients.

Getting to Know You

Our retained recruitment process starts with your business. Our team will take the time to properly understand what you’re about, getting a good feel for your organisational culture, internal processes and ways of working.

This understanding helps us to get a good idea of the kinds of candidates who are really going to fit into your team as well as make an impact on your marketing efforts. Once we know what constitutes a successful hire, we can craft the perfect job advert to catch their attention.

Employment Branding

As part of our retained recruitment process, we also focus on helping your company improve your employment brand. This refers to the impression that you give to potential candidates as an employer, involving things like the benefits you offer and the workplace experience that your employees have.

By helping you to improve your employer brand, we help to define precisely the kind of company you are, which makes it easier to identify your ideal employee. Not only does this make our job easier when it comes to finding the perfect candidate, but it also makes you more attractive to the candidates you interview, increasing the likelihood that they’ll accept a job offer.

Take the next step and sign up for a free employer brand audit to see how we can help elevate your brand’s appeal to attract the best talent.

Enticing Job Adverts

Retained recruitment relies on recruiters putting the work in to find candidates that fit a job role, and we do this through unique and carefully crafted job adverts. By designing job adverts with our marketer hats on, we promote the roles you have available with job adverts that really stand out and are tailored to appeal to your target candidates.

Pre-Approved Candidate Shortlist

A high-quality and pre-screened candidate shortlist is a key feature of the retained recruitment process. We only send you candidates that meet the skill and personality requirements of your role, ensuring that you won’t end up wasting time interviewing unsuitable applicants.

By pre-screening candidates on your behalf, we also help to reduce the time it takes for a new employee to get settled in by ensuring they have the skills and ability to quickly get to grips with the role. 

Refined Recruitment Procedure

We’ll work with you to audit and refine your existing recruitment procedure, integrating the process with our own retained search. You’ll end up with interview processes that are more efficient and engaging and an onboarding approach that helps increase retention, both of which can help boost revenue.

The Benefits of Retained Recruitment

We talked about the difference between retained recruitment and the more traditional contingency recruitment approach. But what about the overall benefits of retained recruitment?

Dedicated Focus

When you work with a retained recruitment agency, you get a recruitment partner who is dedicated to helping you fill your open positions. They’re not racing to find candidates for a range of different companies; they’re taking the time to understand and meet your requirements. 

Higher Quality Candidates

We’ve already highlighted how a retained approach leads to more suitable candidates because of the time taken to understand the role requirements and screen applicants based on a wide range of traits. But retained recruitment can also source more skilled candidates because it doesn’t just look at sourcing applications who are actively looking for jobs, but also targets passive candidates that would be the perfect fit for your marketing team.

Increased Employee Retention

Using a retained recruitment approach can help to increase employee retention because it ensures that you’re hiring candidates who are equipped for the responsibilities of their roles and well-suited to the work environment that your company offers. This significantly reduces the likelihood that they’ll leave the role in the first couple of months, and also helps to improve their engagement at enjoyment of work, which means they’re likely to want to stay with your company for longer.

Personalised Approach

Finally, one of the standout benefits of retained recruitment is that it uses a personalised approach to find the best candidates for your business. The sourcing strategy and screening process will be unique to your requirements, and because the recruiter is working alongside your business as part of your HR team, you can tailor how you attract and hire the right candidates based on their recommendations and your needs.

Summary

Contingency recruitment is becoming more of an outdated approach in the recruitment industry, but there are still agencies out there using the model to deliver a less-than-perfect recruitment service. We’re loud and proud of our opinions that recruitment can and should be done better than that, and the retained recruitment model is one of the best ways to offer a more effective service to help companies find their ideal employees. 

Like the sound of how we do things? Find out more about The Marketists’ recruitment services or get in touch to speak to the team about how we can improve your recruitment efforts. Alternatively, why not sign up for a Free Employer Brand Audit to see how we can help elevate your brand’s appeal to attract the best talent.

The post Why We’re a Retained Recruitment Agency appeared first on The Marketists.

Businesses are living organisms, shaped and influenced by the values and personalities of their employees. This is referred to as culture within the workplace and is a massive factor when it comes to recruiting the right people.

In this article, we’ll discuss the benefits of hiring marketers for culture fit. We will explain what culture fit is and how it can be beneficial to your hiring process. We also highlight ways that you can implement culture in your business and how you can hire for culture fit. 

Alongside insights into using culture fit as a hiring strategy, we provide details about how hiring for culture fit can impact diversity in your organisation and how you might want to consider ‘culture add’ as an alternative. 

What is Culture Fit?

In recruitment, ‘culture fit’ refers to the extent to which the core values and behaviours of an organisation align with those of its employees and potential hires. It’s about finding candidates who not only have relevant experience and qualifications, but will also thrive in your workplace and represent the values and mission of the business. 

In short, a good culture fit is someone who will be able to mesh with your current team and embody the principles of your business. Not only will they be excellent in their role, but they will help to foster a friendly and successful work environment. 

What are the Benefits of Hiring for Culture Fit

Hiring for culture fit is one of the best ways to ensure you get the right person for your business. Company culture is quickly becoming a draw for job seekers, with 35% of US workers stating culture as a reason for being attracted to particular roles. As such, hiring for culture has a variety of benefits for both your business and your current team. 

Reduced Time and Cost of the Hiring Process

The period of time between creating a new role and filling that position is called ‘time to fill’ and hiring for culture fit is one of the best ways to reduce it. The average time to fill a marketing position is 40 days and this can cost your business precious resources and put your team under more stress. 

Increased Employee Retention

Statistics show that 10.7% of people believe a negative work environment would make them leave their jobs and link this to company culture and values. Likewise, a 2018 study found that 27% of employees left their jobs voluntarily, which goes to show how important culture is when it comes to employee retention. 

A positive and impactful company culture can lead to higher employee retention. This can be achieved via support for professional development, greater benefits packages and championing a healthy work-life balance. 

Retention is important as the longer your employees stay, the stronger your workplace culture becomes. This in turn will improve your reputation within your industry and will attract high-value candidates to your company. Moreover, this can massively increase your employee retention rate.

Better Collaboration and Communication

With a strong company culture, all employees are on the same page and understand how to work in harmony. Hiring for a good culture fit will improve team bonding and collaboration, which will also increase productivity. Recent research shows that employees now spend 50% more time engaged in collaborative work, so making sure you have a team that works well together is imperative in the modern workplace. 

In order for colleagues to work well together they must be aligned in their thinking or share a common goal. Team dynamics play a key role in workplace collaboration, which is why hiring for culture fit is vital. 

Fosters a Positive Work Environment

It’s important for all businesses to pay attention to a candidate’s personality when assessing a candidate’s suitability. However, this is especially vital for small businesses where culture is much more tangible. By hiring candidates who would be a good culture fit, you can both preserve and enhance your company culture. 

Better Employee Engagement

Employees feel empowered when working in a company where they are comfortable, valued and accepted. This allows them to feel like they are contributing to something much bigger than standard work and will greatly improve productivity.

Employees who are aligned with the goals and beliefs of a company are more likely to be committed and go above and beyond their job description. Having a highly engaged team of employees can lead to a 202% increase in performance, which proves how important good company culture is. 

To learn more about how you can foster a positive and productive environment, explore our employee engagement services.

Creates a More Positive Brand Image

When your team feels valued and like part of something more they are more likely to speak in high regard about your business and the work you do. This will boost your brand image when employees are talking to clients, customers and prospective hires. 

How to Implement Culture in Your Business

Establishing a company culture is paramount to having a successful business. You want your employees to feel part of something bigger than themselves and be driven to succeed. This will not only improve their performance but also establish a productive and engaging work environment. 

If you’re wondering how you can implement culture in your organisation, we’ve provided some helpful steps and actions below.

Determine Your Culture Benchmark

If you are just starting a company and want to implement culture into your organisation, you need to first establish a benchmark. By building a culture from the ground up, you can ensure that it is in line with your goals and objectives as a business. First, consider the following questions. 

What are the goals of your business?

What are your core values? 

What personality traits would be beneficial for your team? 

These questions may seem daunting, but there are some easy steps you can take to find your culture benchmark. It is important to determine the core values that all members of your business need to share to achieve your goals. However, you should also consider that some of these values may hold more significance to different departments, so having a list of values that will apply across all teams is critical. 

Encourage Employee Involvement

A great way to establish a company culture is to engage your current employees to provide their insight. A simple way to do this is by sending out a survey to your team members regarding the company’s values and mission. This can help you define your company culture and turn the process into a collaborative effort. 

This also gives employees the opportunity to share their concerns or ideas about your company’s culture. When your team members feel heard and listened to this can greatly increase their productivity. Satisfied employees are 12% more productive, so by allowing your team to give their input you are more likely to have a strong company culture. 

Utilise Psychometric Testing

Alongside surveys, you can also utilise psychometric testing to get quantitative data regarding the dominant traits and personalities in your business. Psychometric testing involves the assessment of individuals to measure aspects such as personality, cognitive abilities and emotional intelligence. This is a crucial tool when establishing a company culture as it allows you to determine where the interests and preferences of your workforce overlap. 

This can also be used as part of the hiring process if you have the means. You will be able to get a much better measure of your candidates and if they would be a good culture fit. 

How to Start Hiring for Culture Fit

Once you have developed a good understanding of your company’s culture you can also use this in the hiring process to find a good match. Having culture fit as one of your markers for suitability allows you to filter down applicants much quicker and find the best person for your business. 

Make Your Company Culture Clear

Broadcast company values on your website, socials and within the job advertisement. It is important to have your culture clear across all channels as evidence shows that 68% of Millennials and 54% of Gen X specifically visit a company’s website to evaluate its brand. 

This is crucial as good company culture is becoming more and more appealing to job seekers. By having your values stated on your channels, you are able to funnel applicants to your company who will be more likely to mesh into your team successfully. 

Talk about Company Culture in the Interview

You can use interviews as a way to measure cultural fit. By bringing up culture in an interview, you give candidates the opportunity to showcase their understanding of your company’s culture. Company culture is appealing to potential hires and bringing it up in the interview is important, as 91% of recent hires say the interview process influences their opinion of a company. 

During the interview, you can ask thoughtful questions which will help you assess a candidate for cultural fit. These questions will focus less on their experience and work history, but can give you good insight into the workplace personality of the interviewee. Some great examples of interview questions that can help you establish whether a candidate is a good culture fit are:

How would your colleagues describe you? 

This will help you get a sense of the candidate as a person as well as an employee. It also allows them to showcase their embodied values which they feel are important within the workplace. 

What is it that motivates you?

This will give you an idea of a candidate’s ambitions and what drives them. This is a great way to measure how well they will fit into the company culture as if their motivations align with your business, they are more likely to be a good match. 

Do you prefer to work in a team or on your own?

This question can help you determine how flexible a prospective candidate is. This is also very important if you hold team morale in high regard, as you want to ensure that you hire someone who can complete tasks independently but also excels at teamwork. 

Continually Assess Cultural Fit 

Hiring for culture fit doesn’t end once you’ve found the right candidate, it is an ongoing process. Throughout your new hires onboarding period and training, you can assess how they are slotting into the company culture. Once they have settled into the employee life cycle you can gauge if they are a good culture fit. 

Culture Fit and Diversity

There has been some pushback recently regarding hiring for culture fit and the impact it can have on diversity in the workplace. Unconscious bias can lead to great candidates being passed over and can create a homogenous workplace. While having a team of like-minded individuals is great for cohesion, it can lead to groupthink and missed opportunities. Having a diverse workforce can improve innovation, communication and financial performance, so it’s not to be ignored.

Balance Between Culture Fit and Diversity

Hiring for culture fit has faced some criticisms in recent years due to the impact it can have on diversity within businesses. Hiring specifically for culture fit can result in well-qualified candidates being overlooked in favour of a candidate who aligns with the experiences and background of the individual hiring them. 

This is referred to as similarity bias, the preference for individuals who are similar to us. While this is not detrimental to business, it can create scenarios where discrimination is unintentionally occurring. 

A way to overcome this bias is to ensure that your values are backed by specific examples of behaviour that will benefit the company. For instance, considering ‘success’ to be the success of the organisation over individual achievements. 

Consider ‘Culture Add’

Culture add focuses on hiring candidates who bring something beyond the current style of your work culture and can improve it. Hiring for culture add involves seeking out candidates that bring something new rather than matching your current team perfectly. Transforming your team and company culture for the better, rather than keeping it the same. 

While it may appear contrary to hiring for culture fit, culture add is one of the best ways to strengthen your team. You can still use your culture as a rubric, but look for how candidates can take it further rather than just aligning with it. 

Summary

In conclusion, hiring marketers for culture fit offers a multitude of benefits that extend beyond the recruitment process. Understanding and implementing a strong company culture is crucial for attracting and retaining top talent. 

By hiring for culture fit, you are more likely to find candidates who have great experience but will also be an asset to your wider team. Companies that promote their culture are more likely to find suitable hires, as job seekers are eager to find positive work environments. 

A key takeaway is that while hiring for culture fit is integral to building a cohesive and successful team, it should be approached mindfully to avoid unintentional biases and promote a workplace that values diversity and continuous improvement.

Are you looking to build your marketing team? Find out more about our specialist marketing recruitment services or get in touch to speak to the team about how we can help.

The post The Benefits of Hiring Marketers for Culture Fit appeared first on The Marketists.

In this article, we explore the essential aspects of building and structuring a marketing team, offering insights from defining goals and identifying key roles to the intricate process of recruitment. Whether you’re establishing your first marketing team or seeking to enhance an existing one, this article serves as a comprehensive manual, providing actionable steps and strategies to ensure your marketing team becomes a catalyst for business growth and prosperity.

The Role of a Marketing Team in Business

A strong and skilled marketing team is crucial to the success of any business. Your marketing team can help you identify your target market and find the best ways to reach your ideal customers. Once you know who you are trying to reach, your marketing team can develop an effective strategy that draws customers into your sales funnel. 

How to Build a Marketing Team – First Steps 

There are a few things you need to consider before you begin building a marketing team. In this section, we provide helpful advice to help you establish your marketing goals and determine which marketing channels should be your main focus. 

Define Your Marketing Goals

Before you begin building your marketing team, you should first establish the main goals of your business. This will help you identify the roles that you need on your marketing team and will inform your overall marketing strategy. 

It is important to consider long-term vs short-term goals. Are you looking to build brand awareness? Or are you more concerned with increasing conversions and getting quick wins?  Some examples of business goals that your marketing team can help you achieve are:

• Generating leads to bolster your sales pipeline.
• Driving more sales and closing more deals.
• Improving customer retention and acquisition.

Having a clear benchmark for what you want to achieve allows you to determine the skills that your marketing team will require. You must understand what you want your digital marketing team to accomplish before you consider the channels that you will need to optimise to achieve these goals. 

Prioritise Your Marketing Channels

Now that you have a clear roadmap for what you want your marketing team to achieve, you can start thinking about the customers you are trying to reach and the best channels to convert them. This will form a crucial part of your marketing strategy as 86% of marketers have increased brand awareness using one or more digital marketing channels.  

It can be tempting to utilise as many channels as possible to maximise your outreach, but this can be counterproductive as it takes a lot of time and effort to build content across a range of channels. By honing in on certain channels rather than trying to bolster as many as possible, you can determine what experience candidates will need when building your marketing team. 

To help you get started, consider the following questions:

Where does your target audience spend most of their time online?
What content do they regularly consume? 

These questions can help you establish the best channels to target when building your marketing team. However, you should also attempt to prioritise the channels that will impact your business goals most positively. 

There are 2 main ways to approach this.

First, have a look at your best-performing channels. It can be easier to optimise these channels and get the most value out of them. If your most successful channel is social media, then consider hiring marketers with extensive experience in managing social media campaigns to try and improve these results.

Alternatively, you could focus on your channels that consistently underperform to address your biggest pain points. This will help you build a team based on your current skill gap and will ultimately make your marketing team stronger as they can manage a range of channels. 

Identify the Structure & Key Roles for Your Marketing Team

With a clear set of goals and your channels prioritised, you can begin building a marketing team that specialises in those channels. You should establish a structure for your marketing team that is aligned with your business objectives, available resources and current market trends. Your chosen structure should foster collaboration, promote specialisation and line up with your baseline marketing strategy. 

Having a well-aligned sales and marketing team has been shown to improve revenue by 208%, so your structure must foster collaboration and communication. 

Examples of Marketing Team Structure

In this section, we’ll highlight some examples of marketing team structures that could be useful for your business. It is worth noting that your structure should not be a concrete concept. You should adjust and rearrange the structure of your marketing team to suit the needs of your business and help maintain its effectiveness. 

Product-Focused

A product-focused structure dedicates separate teams for different product lines within a company. This allows marketers to become experts in the products they handle, which means they can develop a more targeted approach to promotion. 

The benefit of a product-focused structure is that you gain the ability to tailor and customise your marketing strategy for each unique product. 

Channel-Specific

These teams are organised based on different marketing channels or platforms, for example, digital marketing, social media, content marketing, PR, etc. By focusing on specific channels, marketing teams can get a deeper and more nuanced understanding of their assigned channel. This allows each channel to be maximised and tuned specifically to its target audience. 

Operational Teams

These teams are structured around the key operational areas of marketing, like campaign management, analytics and creative services. This structure supports a collaborative environment, allowing different teams to come together to implement and improve marketing campaigns. The benefit of operational teams is that they result in an efficient division of labour while also providing your team with a much more holistic view of marketing. 

There is a wide range of structures that you can use for your marketing team to ensure you get the best results. You should also consider the size of your team and the resources that you have available, as this can massively impact the structure of your marketing team. 

Key Roles Within a Marketing Team

Now that you have an understanding of what different marketing team structures can look like, you can start thinking about the roles that you will need to build a strong team of talented marketers. 

Some examples of roles that are needed in a successful marketing team include:

Social Media Manager: This individual oversees all social media accounts and creates content to be published across those channels. They ensure that your customers remain engaged with your brand and devise strategies to improve the performance of your social media posts. 

Content Writer: This role is centred around creating blog posts, ebooks, white papers, and other types of long-form content. This is crucial for SEO marketing and drawing potential customers to your brand. 

Graphic Designer: You want to make sure that your campaigns are appealing to customers and catch their eye, this is where a Graphic Designer comes in. They produce visuals for social media posts, email campaigns and other marketing materials.

Customer Experience (CX) Lead: A Customer Experience Lead in a marketing team is responsible for overseeing and enhancing the overall experience that customers have with a company’s products or services. They analyse the end-to-end customer journey to identify touchpoints, pain points, and areas for improvement.

Data Analyst: A data analyst is responsible for collecting, analysing and interpreting data to provide actionable insights that drive marketing strategy and decision-making. They spend time gathering and organising data from various sources, including customer interactions, marketing campaigns and external market trends.

When determining the roles of your marketing team, you need to ensure that the responsibilities of each role are clear to avoid overlap. This will help your team understand the requirements of their role and will be a vital aspect of communication within your digital marketing team. 

How to Build a Marketing Team – The Recruitment Process

With a clear structure and a good understanding of the roles you need for your marketing team, you can start the hiring process. It is worth noting that hiring for marketing positions is becoming increasingly more competitive. 

Latest trends suggest that demand for marketing positions will rise in the next 10 years, with a 7% increase expected for marketing managers. This means you need to make sure your business stands out among the rest on job boards and social media. 

This section will provide you with some actionable tips to make sure you get the best possible outcomes when building your marketing team. 

Utilise Multiple Channels for Sourcing Talent

If you want to get the best possible pool of candidates for your marketing team, you need to utilise multiple channels. This will help you reach your ideal marketing hires and allow you to source talent from a range of platforms.  

Referrals 

One of the best ways to recruit quality talent is through referrals from friends and colleagues. By reaching out to your network you are more likely to find highly qualified candidates with your desired skill set and can avoid sifting through dozens of applications. 

Job Boards

You can also utilise online job boards like Glassdoor and Indeed, as there is a perfect pool of candidates actively looking for work on these sites. It can be quite overwhelming using job boards to recruit, as there is a wealth of listings and you want yours to stand out. Nevertheless, job boards can be extremely effective for sourcing candidates as 9.8 million employed Brits are actively job hunting each day. 

You should make sure that the job description is detailed and effective, with relevant keywords related to the position you want to fill. This will drive ideal candidates to your role and will help you to source talented marketers. You can also use these sites to determine what your ideal candidates are looking for and tailor your job listing accordingly. 

Find out more about which job advertising platform is best for you with our guide Indeed vs Monster: Which Is Best?

Social Media

A recent trend that brands have been utilising for recruitment is to post job openings on their social media platforms. This goes beyond listing your role on Linked In and even includes posting on platforms like Instagram and TikTok. 

This is a great opportunity to source talented marketers, as they will likely be following relevant brands and businesses. You also gain the benefit of reaching a much wider pool of talent that could be an asset to your marketing team. This also helps you engage with passive candidates much more effectively as they may not be frequenting job boards. 

Tips for Writing a Marketing Job Listing

Your job listing should include an overview of your company culture, as this is shown to be a big draw for potential candidates. Studies have shown that company culture is an important factor for 46% of job seekers, so ensure that you include this in your job advertisement. 

You should also share your brand personality in the listing, as this will resonate with candidates who are a good culture fit and will succeed in your business. Keep the language clear and emphasise opportunities for professional growth and work-life balance, as this will make your role more appealing to potential hires.  

Consider Culture Fit 

When building your marketing team you will want to make sure that your candidate’s values are aligned with those of your business. This is called hiring for culture fit and is proven to benefit your business by increasing employee engagement, retention and productivity. 

You mustn’t overlook culture fit when hiring a marketing team. Companies with strong cultures are 1.5x more likely to report an average revenue growth of 15% over 3 years. So by implementing values and ensuring that you hire marketers who align with them, you will build a robust marketing team who not only collaborate well but also work towards your grander business goals.  

Hire for Diversity and Inclusion

While conducting the hiring process, it is important to remember the significance of creating a diverse team. Companies with diverse leadership have 19% higher revenue on average, this is the result of having a workforce that has diverse thinking and can tackle challenges in unique ways. Evidence also suggests that average performance in diverse work environments is 12% higher than in homogeneous ones. 

Having a diverse team is not just a box-ticking exercise. By having a team with a range of backgrounds you can avoid issues like groupthink and ultimately future-proof your team since they will be better equipped to approach new tasks. 

Hiring with diversity and inclusion in mind also helps you avoid unconscious bias. We naturally have an affinity for individuals who are similar to us and this is true for recruitment as well. While it may seem like a great idea to have a team of like-minded people, diverse teams are proven to be more productive and generate more revenue.

Speak to a Marketing Recruitment Specialist

One of the best resources you can use when building a marketing team is to speak with a recruitment specialist. It can be overwhelming trying to hire a whole team single-handedly, investing in a marketing recruitment specialist like The Marketists can vastly improve the experience and outcome of the hiring process.

We provide robust recruitment solutions and have a wide network of talented marketers who will be an integral part of your marketing team. 

Summary

Overall, building a marketing team is a very involved process but you can break it down into easy steps. You first need to establish a baseline for your marketing strategy, as this will inform what roles and responsibilities are required within your marketing team. You then need to consider which marketing channels you want to prioritise, whether that be your best performing or improving your pain points. 

Next, you can establish a structure for your marketing team that is in line with your business goals and objectives. This will help you identify what roles and responsibilities are required for your marketing team. Then you can begin your hiring process, utilising multiple channels to source your talent. 

While building your digital marketing team, it is important to consider culture fit and diversity. You want to hire someone who is aligned with your company culture and embodies your key values. However, you also need to consider the benefits that come with having a diverse workforce. 

Are you building a marketing team and aren’t sure where to start? Get in contact with one of our expert marketing recruiters at The Marketists to start building your dream marketing team today.

The post Everything You Need to Know When Building a Marketing Team appeared first on The Marketists.

However, talent doesn’t just come to you – you have to work to secure your candidates. Given that the preferences and priorities of candidates are constantly evolving, you need to be constantly reflecting on, adapting, and implementing innovative recruitment methods to secure the best employees for your business.

In the fast-paced and competitive industry that is marketing, this is no exception. So you need to ask yourself: what are you doing to attract candidates to your marketing team? 

In this article, we delve into what candidate attraction strategies are, their importance, and how you can innovatively implement them to successfully grow your marketing team to a force of top-tier employees.  

What are Candidate Attraction Strategies and Why and Are They Important?

Candidate attraction refers to the process you use to catch the attention of potential candidates and make them more likely to apply for a role at your company. These strategies are the first stage of recruitment and involve businesses creating an environment that is attractive to candidates by having a strong employer brand, offering a competitive salary, and creating a positive workplace culture.

If you’re looking to grow your marketing team, you want to be sure that you’re attracting the best talent possible who will be an asset to your company. Thus, candidate attraction strategies are crucial to making sure that your business will thrive and continue to grow and succeed in the diverse and dynamic industry that is marketing.

Key Considerations For Implementing a Candidate Attraction Strategy

Before you implement your candidate attraction strategy, it’s crucial to reflect on several considerations to ensure that you have the strongest strategy in place for your business. We’ve highlighted the most important of these considerations below.

Understanding What Candidate Attraction Strategies You Already Have in Place

Before implementing a candidate attraction strategy in your company, it’s first important to consider what talent attraction strategies you already have in place, for two reasons.

The first reason is that you can reflect on these talent attraction strategies and identify whether they’re successful or not. If they are, you can continue implementing them or find ways to strengthen them further. If they aren’t, you need to consider whether these strategies can be replaced by better alternatives.

Secondly, scrutinising your existing strategy will help you understand what gaps are missing in your candidate attraction strategies and exactly how many strategies you have in place for attracting talent. With this, you can understand the extent of your efforts to secure top-tier talent and make a comprehensive plan for doing this to expand your marketing team.

Choose Where to Advertise Jobs

Before you implement your candidate attraction strategies, you need to decide what channels you will use. This will help you to ensure that you’re putting your job listing in areas where successful marketers are going to be spending their time, which increases the likelihood of bringing in a pool of potential candidates who will be a great fit for your marketing team. 

Typical recruitment marketing platforms include sites such as LinkedIn, but you may also want to think about what other platforms your potential candidates will be present on and then advertise your vacancies here to increase your chances of finding the perfect candidate. For example, you may wish to use platforms such as Indeed, TeamTailor, or Glassdoor to advertise your marketing role if you know that marketing professionals are often looking for roles on these sites.

Ensure that you’re building your employer brand on these job sites and that you have a presence so that your potential candidates are more likely to spot and engage with you and your job applications. It’s also worth keeping track of the sites that are bringing in your best candidates in the long term, as this can help you to strategically focus your efforts on these channels to try and attract more great candidates. 

Find out more about which job advertising platform is best for you with our guide Indeed vs Monster: Which Is Best?

Measure Your Candidate Attraction Rate

Your candidate attraction rate refers to how many potential candidates engage with a job listing for your company compared to the number of people who actually apply for that position. A high candidate attraction rate will mean that there’s less of a difference between the number of people who apply for a position in your team and those who view your job advertisement. 

If you have a low candidate attraction rate, this may be a cause for concern, as there’s something about your company or roles in your job listings that is stopping talent from applying. 

Having a high candidate attraction rate means you’re saving costs on your recruitment process and you’re maintaining a healthy influx of candidates. One of the best ways to achieve this strong candidate attraction rate is by implementing good candidate attraction strategies.

Candidate Attraction Strategies To Implement in Your Business

Now that you’ve understood the key considerations to make before building and implementing your candidate attraction strategy, you’ll want to understand the strategies you can put in place to increase the quality of candidate that applies to your marketing team roles. We’ve delved into what we feel are some of the most important talent attraction strategies that you can use in your business today. 

Develop your Employer Brand

One of the most critical talent attraction strategies is ensuring that you have a strong marketing brand. Known as ‘employer branding’, this is a critical element of attracting candidates and is one of the first that you should be focusing on when considering how to develop your talent attraction strategy. 

Employer branding is the image that you create and share with the outside world, including candidates, which showcases what you’re like as an employer. Businesses use employer branding to promote to potential candidates what the experience of working in their company is like through values, employee experience, and the workplace experiences on offer. 

By having a strong employer brand, you’ll be perceived as attractive to potential clients given your appealing reputation, which will increase your chances of securing top-tier talent in your marketing team. Attract your candidates with your employer branding by advertising the positives of your workplace, highlighting competitive remuneration, and other professional benefits such as learning and development opportunities or hybrid and remote working models. 

Take the next step and sign up for a free employer brand audit to see how we can help elevate your brand’s appeal to attract the best talent.

Use Employee Testimonials to Your Advantage 

Your current and past employee opinions go a long way in helping you to attract talent for job roles. At the end of the day, candidates need to hear how great your company is to work at from people who have had this experience first-hand. 

Getting your previous employees and current employees to provide their feedback on what it was like, or is like, to work in your marketing team will then create a great resource for you to share with future talent. When this is positive, it will be more likely to compel more candidates to apply for your roles. 

Promote Company Values

Promoting your company values is a great way of attracting top-tier talent. Your values are the guiding principles and beliefs that you stand for which shows the world, and future employees, what you are working towards. 

By sharing these with a potential candidate, you’re immediately seeking out an individual who shares your values, and so are attracting the best potential talent for your marketing team. 

If you haven’t yet defined your organisation’s values, or feel that these could be strengthened, we’d advise making this a priority. Having your core beliefs and principles in place makes it much clearer to potential candidates what your company is about and what it values the most, driving them to be involved in your operations.

Keep Your Candidate Application Process Concise

One of the biggest shortfalls that companies face when advertising their roles is a lengthy candidate application process. The longer your candidate application process, the more likely you are to lose potential talent to other competitors, especially if these competitors have much shorter application processes and are quicker to make their job offers to individuals. 

Ensure that you make your application process as speedy as possible, including only the most critical steps to ensure that the candidates you’ve attracted are well-suited for your marketing team. It’s worthwhile conducting a review of your application process to see where you can make efforts to shorten and streamline the overall process. This way, you’re taking proactive steps to keep your candidate application process concise which in turn increases your chances of securing the best talent for your marketing team. 

Create a Flexible and Culture-Driven Work Environment 

A flexible working environment is something that a large proportion of professionals are looking for. Research has shown that 40% of employers have seen an increase in requests for flexible working in comparison to previous years, demonstrating just how much of a priority this is for employees when searching for a role. 

If possible in your company, consider offering the opportunity for your workforce to work in a hybrid or remote way would limit your chances of losing exceptional talent who might view this as a priority. Especially given that nearly half (47%) of all workers prefer to work in a hybrid manner, with a further 11% preferring a fully remote working model. 

Not only this, but company culture has always been a crucial factor in attracting talent. Potential employees want to know that they’re going to be joining a company that has a positive working environment and aligns with their own values. If you have processes or events in your team that illustrate how you foster company culture, make this clear in your job advertisements. 

For example, do you regularly have company lunches or dinners outside of the office, or do you hold events or sessions to promote team collaboration? These are a few ways to nurture a culture-driven workforce that candidates will love.

Utilise Social Media to Your Advantage

Other than advertising your marketing team role on the relevant platforms where your potential candidates will be active, you can also utilise social media to your advantage. 

Social media is one of the most powerful tools for recruitment in our current digital era, and you can use its various platforms to your advantage to store assets that you can use to attract potential talent. These assets include reviews, employer branding, your values, core messaging, and employee testimonials.

45% of job seekers find that searching for roles on social media yields better results compared to traditional job searching methods, with 20% of these job seekers wanting to see more information about potential roles being advertised on social media. So it’s within your best interests to post as much detail as you can about your marketing team role on social media in an attempt to attract the best talent. 

Be sure to develop your social media presence, as this can be crucial to your talent acquisition strategy. Make yourself known on a number of social media platforms, create engaging content, and post regularly, as well as engage with others within the industry. This will build your brand on these platforms and give you a way of advertising your roles better so that you catch the attention of top-tier candidates. 

Think About Using an Employee Referral Scheme

One of the best ways to attract quality talent to your team is by building an employee referral scheme. This means that your current, or previous, employees can refer and recommend former colleagues or friends for vacancies that you’re advertising in your team.

An employee referral scheme is a cost-effective way of attracting talent compared to usual methods for candidate attraction. This is because the candidate in question already has a link to your company given that they are trusted by one of your current or past employees, which means you’re more likely to be attracting top-tier candidates to your company.

Summary

Your candidate attraction strategies are critical methods to implement in your recruitment process that allow you to successfully attract the best talent for your team. We hope that this article has given you the necessary insight that you need to grasp some of the best candidate attraction strategies, which you can then implement to capture the attention of some of the best talent and in turn build a team of quality individuals in your marketing team.

If you’re looking for support with your candidate experience and attraction strategy, take a look at our marketing recruitment services, check out our other articles to learn more, or sign up for a Free Employer Brand Audit to see how we can take your brand impact even further.

The post 7 Candidate Attraction Strategies to Grow Your Marketing Team appeared first on The Marketists.

In this article, we’re going to look at everything from understanding what employer branding is to knowing why it is important and some top tips for how to implement it yourself. With this information, you can then go forth and do great things whilst attracting the right people. 

For those of you aiming to lure the brightest stars in your field, you’ll want to keep reading as we have everything you need to know about employer branding below!

What is Employer Branding?

So, what is employer branding? It seems logical to start by explaining what we’re talking about here before we move on to more of the nitty gritty stuff. 

Employer branding is about showing job seekers who you are, what you do and what you can offer them. It allows companies to project their values and shine a light on what makes them different. 

Employer branding in recruitment provides you with a strategy to position yourself as the best of the best. It allows you to not only create a personality around your brand that will retain current employees but also attract new ones. 

This strategy is often used by HR teams to paint a picture of who your brand is and the type of place you are to work. You’ll want to ensure that you create a strong reputation from the perspective of your employees. Things like your culture, benefits and workplace atmosphere are key areas to highlight when building your employer brand.

Why is Employer Branding Important?

There are many reasons why employer branding is important. This under-valued strategy has plenty of benefits and helps to highlight the areas that make your business great.

Below are a few more reasons why you should be focusing on your employer branding.  

Increases Employee Retention

We all know that hiring costs businesses a lot more time and money than retaining the talent you already have. Creating a strong employer branding strategy will help employees see the value in your brand, encouraging them to stay with you. Plus, according to The Employer Brand Statistics from LinkedIn (page 4), a strong employer brand can aid a 50% cost per-hire reduction, allowing you to reduce the impact on your bottom line.

Puts You Ahead of Competitors 

When competing for top talent, candidates have the upper hand when it comes to choosing where they work. They’ll likely have several companies competing for them, so employer branding can make all the difference here. 

The Employer Brand Statistics by LinkedIn (page 5) also found that 75% of job seekers consider an employer’s brand before even applying for a job. With this in mind, you’ll want to make sure all your highlights are obvious when they start looking!

Helps Attract New Talent 

A strong employer brand will also help ensure you attract the right people and the best talent to your business. Job seekers are 3 x more likely to trust a company’s employees than the company (page 5), so having good employee reviews on places like Glassdoor will likely attract more of the finest candidates out there.

How to Build a Strong Employer Brand

Now you know a bit more about what an employer brand is and its importance for your business, let’s move on to the strategic stuff.  

Keep reading to find our top tips on which you can apply employer branding to your company to get the most out of your marketing efforts. 

1. Conduct an Employer Brand Audit 

To create the best employer brand possible, it is important to know how others feel about what you’re currently doing. Conducting an audit on the perception of your brand is an excellent way to gather feedback and find room for improvement. 

Your employees are a superb place to start when conducting a brand audit as it will help you understand your current branding from a different perspective. Dig into your strengths and weaknesses and find areas to improve. This will also help to ensure you’re presenting your brand in a way that is relatable and relevant to those you are trying to attract.

2. Understand Your Values

If you’re looking to present your brand in a way that is true and meaningful to your audience, you first need to have an in-depth understanding of what’s at the heart of your company. Spend some time uncovering what motivates you and your employees and take a look at how your business is impacting people and the world around them. 

To help get you started, you could first look into the reasons why your business exists. What is your purpose and do you show this through your brand? Next, you can start to look at where you’re heading. What is the vision for the business and how do you plan to get there? Finally, focus on the values. Ask what is important to this business and understand how your behaviour reflects that. 

These will enable companies to understand their organisation on a more meaningful level, which will help transform your business into a strong brand. Once the foundations are formed, you can then start to use these to project your employer branding strategies to potential candidates. 

3. Enhance Your Online Presence

Often the first place people go when searching for a business is online. Whether it be your website, social media or recruiting sites, this is often the first impression that your brand leaves on potential candidates. As we all know, first impressions count, so if you’re not already presenting yourself as the best of the best, then you’re missing out on a great opportunity. 

You can enhance your website or social media by creating value-led content that has the reader at the heart. Understand what people want from you and have it waiting for them the minute they click on your site. It’s also important to create a user-friendly website, allowing visitors to explore with ease – errors or slow sites will just make them frustrated and more likely to leave. 

It’s also vital that you highlight why you’re different and what you have to offer. This can be done by showing off your perks and benefits, displaying employee testimonials or engaging in a way that is human-orientated and likeable. Visitors to your site or social media page will get a feel for who you are and will start to build associations around your brand, so you must present your organisation in a way that aligns with your values.

4. Develop a Strong Onboarding Process

Your onboarding process is the first experience that your new hire has with your company, so you must get off to a good start. Not only do you want to make it as easy as possible for them to settle in, but you also want to ensure you’re leaving a positive impression.

A good onboarding process should include everything they need to know about working for you and what is expected of them in their role. Being clear and consistent from the start helps them to feel more comfortable in delivering their tasks and creates a smoother transition for everyone involved. Plus, according to statistics in a G2 article in 2019, companies with strong onboarding processes improve their new employee retention rate by 82% and productivity by over 70%.

5. Create Perks and Benefits To Be Proud Of

We all love a perk and who’s to say we can’t also enjoy these at work? From healthcare benefits to meal vouchers, team breakfasts, gym memberships and much more, these benefits will help present your brand in a strong light. When candidates are comparing you against competitors, you must stand out from the crowd and create an employer brand that shouts ‘We care, look at what we offer our employees!’.

6. Host Company Events

Company events provide an ideal place to shout about the great things you do. You can host these events both internally and externally, both of which have their benefits. External affairs are great for visibility and enhancing your brand to a wider audience. Whereas internal occasions are perfect for boosting team morale and creating a positive work environment.

7. Encourage Employee Testimonials

Not only are potential candidates more likely to trust what your employees have to say about your brand, but 69% of current employees also said that it is very important that the brand they work for is one they are proud to support. 

So, by enhancing your employer brand and creating one that your employees value, they are more likely to start spreading the word about how great you are! You can then use these testimonials on places like Glassdoor, Vault, Comparably and more to attract some of the best in your field.

8. Build a Positive Workplace Culture

Workplace culture is vital for building a strong employer brand. As we have already explored, what the employees have to say matters. So, you’ll want to work on ways to keep your team happy to ensure they feel good about working for you and also want to tell others about their happiness within their job. 

Ensuring you’re a place that focuses on diversity and inclusion is a great place to start working on the overall culture of your company. Plus, with more than 50% of CEOs stating that company culture influences productivity, creating a happy work environment makes sense on multiple levels.

9. Design Workspaces Around Employee Needs

Your workspace reflects the company and is a visual representation of your brand. When considering employer branding ideas, we recommend ensuring that your offices or working areas reflect who you are as a company. For example, a fun marketing agency might have pool tables, games, and quirky decor throughout their offices. 

Creating an experience for your employees when they come to work every day is also super important for developing a strong employer brand. A McKinsey Employee Experience in 2020 found that having a positive employee experience has 16 times the engagement level of employees with a negative experience. If that doesn’t make you want to create a better environment to work in, we don’t know what will!

Designing workspaces that resonate with your employees is a powerful way to enhance engagement and foster a positive company culture. For more strategies on creating an environment where employees feel valued and connected, check out our employee engagement services.

10. Actively Encourage Learning and Development

With boredom being one of the main reasons for employees leaving jobs, learning and development opportunities are more important than ever. Not only does this create an environment for growth but it also looks great for your employer brand. 

The more opportunities you give to your employees to learn and develop, the more likely they are to stick around and also say good things about working for your company. Plus, we already know that potential new hires trust what current employees have to say about the company, so everyone wins!

Tools to Use for Employer Branding

There are plenty of amazing tools out there that will help you get your employer branding off the ground.

For those of you looking to get started on your brand, check out some of the recommendations below.

1. Glassdoor

Those using Glassdoor are in a great position to showcase their employer branding efforts. Here you can tell potential hires what’s great about working for your company, include the elements we’ve discussed above and shout about the good stuff. Be sure use lots of imagery of your team too, it demonstrates your human side. It also assists in creating a place for your current employees to share their experiences of the business – an excellent way to showcase your testimonials! 

According to Glassdoor, 86% of job seekers look at a company’s reviews and rating before deciding where to apply for a job. Glassdoor is the leading platform for company reviews and it pays to be in charge of your reputation their. Make sure you’re responding to all feedback, positive and negative.

2. LinkedIn

Those using Glassdoor are in a great position to showcase their employer branding efforts. Here you can tell potential hires what’s great about working for your company. It also assists in creating a place for your current employees to share their experiences of the business – an excellent way to showcase your testimonials! 

3. Applicant Tracking and Recruitment Management Systems

The whole idea of creating a strong employer brand is to present the best impression possible. Applicant Tracking Systems and Recruitment Management tools can help ensure candidates remain engaged with your company and guide them through the recruitment process. These tools allow to to stay in control throughout the process, whether that’s setting tasks, delivering candidate feedback, managing interviews and more. Tools like Greenhouse allow you to do this, and build a wealth of analytics to understand where you can improve your candidate experience. According to a study conducted by Career Builder,  78% of candidates view candidate experience as an indicator of how a company treats its employees. 

4. Google Analytics (Or Other Website Analytics Tools)

Those using Glassdoor are in a great position to showcase their employer branding efforts. Here you can tell potential hires what’s great about working for your company. It also assists in creating a place for your current employees to share their experiences of the business – an excellent way to showcase your testimonials! 

Summary

Overall, we can see that employer branding benefits are tenfold. It is an important aspect for any business looking to attract the best talent, alongside retaining existing employees. This strategy also helps to put you ahead of your competitors and create a recognisable presence in your field. We hope that after reading this article you are now equipped with the knowledge to go forth and create a brand worth talking about! 

If you’re looking to attract and retain the best and brightest talent in your field, the Marketists can help. Specialising in marketing for recruitment businesses, we can help get your brand in front of the right people. Get in touch to find out more about our employment branding services, check out our other articles to learn more, or sign up for a Free Employer Brand Audit to see how we can take your brand impact even further.

The post The Ultimate Guide to Employer Branding appeared first on The Marketists.

Our work in recruitment has shown us that high employee engagement rates are essential to retaining the most talented candidates and creating a better onboarding experience for new hires, both of which are key to stable business growth. In this article, we share six of the most impactful employee engagement initiatives to help boost your employer brand and explain the impact that these ideas for employee engagement could have on your business.

What Is Employee Engagement?

Employee engagement refers to how involved, enthusiastic and emotionally connected employees are to their role and place of work. It’s a metric that is often used to measure company culture, productivity and enjoyment.

Employees who feel engaged at work are committed to the work they do and genuinely invested in the outcome of their projects. They feel focused on their tasks, enjoy being at work and work efficiently, as well as feel a positive affinity with their employer. 

Why Is Employee Engagement Important?

Perhaps the main reason relating to the importance of employee engagement is that it can have a positive impact on performance. Research from CIPD has found that this relationship is reciprocal, but multiple pieces of evidence show engaged employees perform better at work than their unengaged peers.

Digging deeper into this, research from IES found that employees who are engaged are more willing to go beyond the basic demands of their role and also to engage with relevant learning and development opportunities outside of work. So not only are engaged teams better at their jobs, but they’re also more likely to be innovative and proactive, which gives your company a competitive edge in your industry. 

A report from The Engagement Institute found that employees who are disengaged at work cost U.S. companies up to $550 billion a year. When your team isn’t engaged they’re a lot less focused and productive, decreasing your business output and ending up costing you money that more engaged employees would be making.

From a recruitment perspective, more engaged employees are likely to stay in their roles for longer, increasing retention rates and reducing the money that needs to be spent on hiring and training new employees more regularly. Having high employee retention is a benefit in itself, but it also contributes to greater workplace stability and a better reputation as an employer, the latter of which makes future recruitment efforts easier.

How to Measure Employee Engagement

Measuring employee engagement is necessary when you’re working towards improving it, but it’s not a straightforward metric that can be easily measured with one type of survey. Instead, you’ll need to decide what employee engagement looks like in your business and then decide on the best way to measure this.

Many organisations use productivity and focus as a measure of engagement, which you can record by looking at the amount of time that employees are taking to complete a task or the output they’re producing over a period of time. Another good gauge of engagement is how much employees are interacting at work, which you can measure by looking at the number of internal emails or messages that are sent. 

Engagement looks at how connected your employees feel to your business, so another way to measure engagement is by looking at retention rates. It’s also worth looking at more qualitative research to understand your teams’ feelings towards your company, which you can do through internal surveys or focus groups.

There’s not a single metric that engagement is measured in, but by understanding your performance in the areas we’ve listed above, you’ll get a much better idea of how engaged your staff are.

How to Increase Employee Engagement in the Workplace

Increasing employee engagement in the workplace has a variety of different benefits for your business, both from a performance perspective and when it comes to your recruitment efforts. Below are some of the best practices for employee engagement that will help to make a difference for your company.

Focus on Company Culture

One of the first pieces of advice we’ll give to people wondering how to increase employee engagement is to look inward at your company culture. The atmosphere and interactions within your organisation have a massive impact on engagement, so an important place to start is evaluating your existing culture.

Consider the elements of your culture that lend themselves to better employee engagement in the workplace; do you encourage employees to relax and socialise as well as have periods of focus throughout the day? Is it simple for employees to recognise each other’s hard work? Does your company use systems and processes that make it easy to understand tasks and objectives?

Changing your workplace culture can be one of the big drivers of employee engagement, especially when you create a culture that prioritises productivity and enjoyment at work. Here’s another one of our articles on company culture, if you’d like to read more about how this can impact your organisation and your recruitment efforts.

Provide Development Support

Another good aspect of an employee engagement strategy is to ensure you’re providing support and resources for employees to develop and upskill at work. This is important for two reasons.

The first is that, when your employees have the required skills and experience to do their jobs to a high standard, they’re a lot more productive. In the same way that engaged employees tend to be more productive, employees who are working productively and finding a flow state with their work will feel more engaged, improving employee engagement at work overall.

The second reason to use development opportunities and resources for increasing employee engagement is that it helps your employees feel more supported in their career progression and grateful to your company for this help. Not only will this increase the likelihood of them staying in your organisation for longer, as they don’t need to change jobs to upskill, but it also creates a more positive culture of learning and improvement, which contributes to a greater sense of engagement.

Integrate Work with Company Values

Levels of employee engagement are linked to how connected employees feel to your organisation, its mission and its values. A great method to increase this sense of connection is to clearly explain how the work you’re doing plays a part in wider business goals or company values, so that employees feel more accomplished and like they’re making an impact.

Ensure that all of your projects are aligned with your overarching purpose and objectives and make this clear to employees at the start of their work. Depending on the service or product your company offers this might not always be straightforward, so also think about how you can connect certain workplace tasks and behaviours to your values so that employees still feel like they’re contributing.

Give Employees Decision-Making Power

Engaged employees feel like they are a valued part of the business, and one of the most effective ways to improve employee engagement with this is to give them more decision-making power. The extent to which you can do this will depend on your business, but it’s a brilliant way to help teams feel more important and like they’re making a difference at work.

Having a good feedback culture plays an important part in this employee engagement strategy, as you want your teams to feel like they can offer suggestions or improvements that are going to make your business better. But you can take this a step further by creating forums and discussions where you ask employees for ideas of changes you could make to improve the business and encourage all kinds of suggestions.

This might take a while to get off the ground to begin with, but as employees grow more confident you’ll start to see the impact of this approach to improving employee engagement. You can help with this by ensuring that you actually take suggestions on board and make changes that your employees want, and then draw attention to these changes to encourage more involvement from the wider team.

Recognise All Kinds of Success

Feeling successful and appreciated for the work you do is another key contributor to levels of employee engagement. If you’re looking for ways to increase engagement at work then you should make sure you have an effective recognition and reward system in place which identifies the effort that all employees are putting in.

It’s easy for certain kinds of success to hog the limelight in the workplace; employees who meet project deadlines, make big sales or suggest an idea which has a positive impact. But if you only reward these kinds of success then you’re potentially excluding a large proportion of your workforce whose roles might not give them the opportunity to excel in this way.

For this reason, you need a recognition system that notices all kinds of success, whether it’s big or small or has an impact on a personal or company-wide level. Encourage your employees to highlight their own achievements or the achievements of their colleagues, and get managers to also dedicate time to celebrating these wins to help employees feel more recognised.

This can be a very effective idea for employee engagement. It helps your team to feel more positively towards you as an employer, as well as helping them feel more engaged with their work because they know they will be rewarded for positive performance.

Encourage Ambassadorship

An ambassador of employee engagement is someone who actively demonstrates their engagement at work to inspire others to do the same and feeds back about engagement levels to help improve them. Behaviour at work has a big impact on increasing employee engagement, and by encouraging ambassadorship you can help to set a precedent for engagement at work by encouraging employees to copy the actions of others.

You need ambassadors at every level if you’re implementing employee engagement strategies, so don’t just recruit more senior staff to help push your initiatives. Make it clear how your employees can be engagement ambassadors and then reward those who step forward, which should encourage more and more people to do the same.

The great thing about employee engagement is that it genuinely improves people’s experiences of work, so once they’ve started to feel more engaged they’ll want to continue. But to get this off the ground and start to increase employee engagement in the first place you need people who will implement changes and report back, which is why ambassadorship can be so useful.

Summary

Employee engagement links to employer brand because the experience your employees have in your company impacts the reputation you gain as a place to work. When your staff are engaged they have a better time at work and are more likely to speak positively about your company as an employer, which in turn can increase candidate attraction.

If you’re looking for help developing your employer brand through employee engagement, The Marketists are recruitment specialists who can help. Find out more about our employee engagement services or get in touch to speak to our team about how we can help.

The post 6 Employee Engagement Ideas to Boost Your Employer Brand appeared first on The Marketists.

A positive candidate experience can be a powerful catalyst, influencing an individual’s decision to join a company and shaping the organisation’s employer brand; studies have shown that candidates are 38% more likely to accept an offer if they’ve had a positive experience. Businesses must recognise the link between candidate experience and overall business success, understanding that each interaction contributes to the narrative surrounding their workplace. 

This article delves into five top strategies beyond routine recruitment practices, from perfecting job advertisements to streamlining the application process and gathering and implementing feedback. These strategies offer a roadmap to guarantee a positive candidate experience, establishing your company as a magnet for top talent. 

Understanding the Candidate Experience 

At its core, candidate experience in recruitment is the journey a potential hire undergoes during the entire application and selection process. Broken into stages, it encompasses the initial application, communication throughout the process, and the post-offer period, each shaping the candidate’s perception of the organisation.

Why is Candidate Experience Important?

In recruitment, creating a positive candidate experience is not just a nicety but a strategic essential, especially in the digital age. With the evolution of the internet and the omnipresence of social media, the candidate experience in recruitment goes beyond the hiring room; 72% of applicants will share a poor interview experience on social media. 

Previously, if a candidate had a bad recruitment experience, their story would go as far as close friends and family. Today, candidates have a much bigger platform to share their feelings. 

A bad review or a disgruntled candidate’s post can reverberate online, influencing potential hires and shaping the employer brand. A study showed more than half of job seekers won’t apply to a company after reading negative employer reviews.

A positive candidate experience is a powerful driver for businesses. Beyond attracting the best candidates, it contributes significantly to a company’s employer brand, showcasing it as an organisation that values and respects its applicants. 

The impact doesn’t end with recruitment; a positive candidate experience ripples through the company’s dynamics, reducing employee attrition rates and boosting long-term retention. It also ensures that successful applicants begin their journey positively, making them feel like a valued team member. 

What is a Negative Candidate Experience?

In the recruitment process, a negative candidate experience often manifests in miscommunication and frustration. Around 46% of candidates who believe their time has been disrespected will withdraw from the recruitment process.

Picture this: you’re applying for a job and are met with radio silence from the employer, leaving you feeling very uncertain. The job application process resembles a maze, demanding excessive time and energy, and the mobile you’ve used to apply is seemingly incompatible. As you navigate through interviews, you’re met with unfriendly faces and a lack of opportunities to connect with the company or voice your concerns. There’s no chance to ask questions, provide feedback, or gain insights into the company culture.

A negative candidate experience isn’t just an inconvenience; it’s a missed opportunity that can have big consequences. Contextually, 69% of applicants who have had a negative candidate experience will never apply to your company again.

Beyond the immediate impact of losing out on top talent, the repercussions extend further. The cost of rehiring, driven by the fallout from a negative candidate experience in recruitment, can be substantial. Worse still, a disconnection between promised expectations and reality can lead to losing valuable employees.

Recognising and mitigating these challenges is integral to building a positive candidate experience in recruitment that resonates with top talent.

How to Improve Candidate Experience in Recruitment 

1. Perfect Your Job Advertisements

Write Inspiring Job Ads

Job advertisements mark the starting point for candidate experience in recruitment, setting the tone for the entire journey. Job ads should be inspiring narratives detailing what the role entails and selling the company culture and benefits. 

A compelling job ad does more than attract; it persuades candidates to envision themselves thriving in the role. Using visual phrases such as, ‘Imagine waking up, looking forward to getting stuck into planning a campaign ’ is a good example of this. Avoid simply listing the job description and what the role requires, as it can be perceived as disengaging and uninspiring.

Hire For a Real Need

Crafting detailed job advertisements is about more than just filling a position. It can be an excellent opportunity to make sure you’re hiring for a real need. Before writing your job ad, you should perform a skills gap analysis to determine exactly what you need from a skills and talent perspective and establish what type of candidate will meet these requirements.

Neglecting these steps can increase the probability of altering course or questioning the hiring need. Consequently, this could negatively impact the candidate’s experience, resulting in delays, ineffective communication and time wasted for the candidate. 

Include a Salary Range

A non-negotiable in job advertisements is the inclusion of a salary range, although there can be some exceptions. Generally, leaving out this crucial detail can imply a lack of respect for the potential candidate’s time, as well as dissuading top talent. A survey from LinkedIn revealed that, for 91% of people, seeing a salary range on a job ad would impact their decision to apply.

Both are costly to the business, impacting the time it takes to fill the position and employer branding, contributing to a negative candidate experience. 

Outline the Hiring Process

Transparency is the key, not only in salary but also in outlining the hiring process. Candidates appreciate knowing what to expect, and this transparency is a cornerstone of improving the candidate experience. There’s less chance of candidates dropping out of the recruitment process if they were informed beforehand and are prepared to meet the requirements of the application process.

Ultimately, a well-crafted job ad doesn’t just attract; it sets the stage for a meaningful and positive candidate experience.

2. Streamline the Application Process 

Optimise Online Application Forms

When considering how to improve candidate experience in recruitment, the application process is a great area to focus on as it can either captivate or frustrate potential hires. Roughly 60% of job searchers have abandoned an application because of its length and complexity, so if you make the process too long, you’ll likely lose out on a lot of potential.

To ensure a positive candidate experience, it’s crucial to simplify and optimise application forms by only focusing on essential information and removing unnecessary steps that may be time-consuming and deter top talent.

Invest in a User-Friendly Application Portal 

Investing in a user-friendly, well-designed application portal makes a big difference in streamlining the application process and aiding a positive candidate experience. An intuitive navigation system with straightforward instructions ensures candidates can easily understand and complete each step, and be confident in what information they need to submit. 

Making your application portal mobile-friendly is essential to accommodate candidates who prefer applying on mobile devices, making the process user-friendly for everyone. A Glassdoor study found that 35% of job seekers prefer to apply from their phone. These features make the process seamless for candidates and showcase your company’s commitment to a positive candidate experience. A good tip is integrating a table of contents into your application to improve mobile use. 

Use an Applicant Tracking System 

When considering candidate experience strategies, an efficient applicant tracking system is a top tip, especially for businesses with high-volume recruitment needs. Opt for user-friendly systems, such as Lever or Greenhouse, to enhance the application process and streamline the journey for both recruiters and candidates. 

Below are a couple of key features and functions of an ATS which can significantly improve candidate experience.

Application Management

• Efficiently collects, organises, and reviews candidate applications for streamlined screening.

Resume Parsing

• Extracts relevant information from resumes and standardises it for easy comparison and analysis.

Collaboration and Communication

• Facilitates seamless communication and collaboration among hiring team members, enabling feedback sharing, interview scheduling and status updates.

Candidate Tracking

• Monitors candidate progress throughout the recruitment process, from application to various interview stages.

Search and Filters:

• Provides powerful search and filtering capabilities to identify candidates with specific skills or qualifications quickly.

Automated Workflows

• Sets up automated, personalised workflows for tasks like acknowledgement emails, interview scheduling, and rejection notices, enhancing overall efficiency.

3. Coach Hiring Managers 

Not all recruiters make for effective interviewers. Coaching hiring managers is a strategic move to ensure a positive candidate experience and mitigate the risk of making ill-informed hires, which can be costly to the business.

Roll Out Training Sessions 

Training and upskilling hiring managers are crucial to enhancing the candidate experience and fostering a positive connection. It’s a strategic investment that improves the overall candidate experience and pays dividends through well-informed hires and positive employer branding. 

Below are a couple of training session topics that would give your hiring managers the tools to excel in interviewing.

• Appropriate Questioning Methods

Train on effective questioning techniques to extract relevant information from candidates.

• Employee Value Proposition (EVP)

Provide guidance on articulating the company’s EVP to showcase its unique values and benefits.

• Building Rapport

Conduct training to enhance skills in building rapport with applicants for a positive candidate experience.

• Understanding Interview Types

Educate on the nuances of different interview types to tailor approaches based on the situation.

Share Interviewer LinkedIn Profiles 

93% of people find job applications and interviewing quite a stressful process. Sharing the interviewer’s LinkedIn profiles with candidates is a simple act that transforms the interaction into a familiar exchange, and allows them to conduct pre-interview research. This can alleviate applicant’s anxieties, improving the candidate experience.

4. Effectively Communicate and Be Transparent

Keeping Candidates Informed 

One of the top ways to improve candidate experience in recruitment is clear and consistent communication to alleviate any anxieties. So much so, that 96% of applicants will apply for jobs if they know the company will keep them informed.

This includes setting clear expectations about the recruitment timeline, proactively communicating any delays that may arise, informing them if they haven’t been successful and providing feedback. Feedback is an important component, as 38% of candidates’ biggest frustration is a lack of feedback following an interview. 

Additionally, maintaining a continuous line of communication from acceptance to onboarding reinforces the candidate’s sense of value and engagement with the company. 

Personalise Communication 

Strategies for effective communication involve personalised touchpoints. Sending regular updates on application status and timeline, with personalised messaging, demonstrates respect for the candidate’s time and builds trust.

Doing this manually is not always possible, especially for larger companies. Using an ATS is a great way to achieve personalised messaging easily.

Reimbursing Candidates for Their Time 

To enhance the positive candidate experience, consider reimbursing candidates for their time. This acknowledges their efforts and demonstrates a commitment to fairness. 

By integrating these communication strategies into the recruitment process, companies not only hone a positive candidate experience, but also solidify their reputation as employers who value transparency and genuine engagement. This contributes to both short-term successful hires and the long-term strengthening of employer branding.

5. Gather and Act on Feedback 

Collecting and acting on feedback is a powerful tool to improve candidate experience, naturally saving the business money. A few years ago, Virgin Media stated that negative candidate experience had cost them a whopping $5 million annually. This reinforces the importance of collecting feedback and then translating it into actionable improvements to ensure an ongoing positive candidate experience in recruitment. 

How to Measure Candidate Experience 

• Candidate Surveys

Request candidates to complete a concise survey at the end of the hiring process to gather direct feedback on their experience. Implement a well-crafted candidate experience survey template to assess various aspects systematically.

• Employer Review Boards

Monitor employer review platforms like Glassdoor and Indeed to gauge public sentiment and identify areas for improvement in the candidate experience in recruitment. Analyse both positive and negative reviews to inform strategies for enhancing the process.

• Social Media Listening

Leverage social media platforms to actively listen for mentions of your brand and comments regarding candidate experience. This real-time feedback provides valuable insights into how your organisation is perceived and helps shape candidate experience strategies.

• New Hire Feedback

Ask for feedback from newly hired candidates to gain insights into their journey from acceptance to onboarding. Understanding their perspective provides actionable information for improving the positive candidate experience and refining recruitment strategies.

• Employee Input

Conduct interviews with employees to gather insights into their perceptions of the hiring process, including any information they may have acquired. Additionally, seek their impressions on integrating new hires into the team. This aims to uncover valuable clues about the effectiveness of your onboarding process.

• ATS Data Analysis

Use the ATS data to assess various recruitment stages. Analysing metrics such as time-to-fill, application completion rates, and candidate progression helps quantify the effectiveness of candidate experience strategies and identify areas for optimisation.

Metrics to Consider 

Below are five key performance indicators (KPIs) that recruiters should consider to measure and improve candidate experience.

1. Time-to-Fill: Assess how quickly vacancies are filled, ensuring a streamlined and efficient process.

2. Candidate Net Promoter Score (NPS): Gauge the likelihood of candidates recommending the company to others, providing an overview of their satisfaction.

3. Application Completion Rate: Track the percentage of candidates completing the application process, indicating its user-friendliness.

4. Offer Acceptance Rate: Measure the percentage of candidates accepting job offers, reflecting the attractiveness of the role and overall experience.

5. Candidate Satisfaction Surveys: Directly collect feedback from candidates about their experience, offering qualitative insights for improvement.

By focusing on these key metrics, recruiters can comprehensively understand the candidate experience, pinpoint areas for enhancement, and implement strategies to elevate the overall recruitment process.

Summary 

Ensuring a positive candidate experience is the backbone for success in recruitment. From streamlining the application process to coaching hiring managers and gathering actionable feedback, the strategies explored here form a robust framework for improving candidate experience. 

Remember, each interaction is an opportunity to showcase your company’s values and culture, making a lasting impression on potential hires. By prioritising a positive candidate experience, you attract top talent and solidify your position as an employer committed to continually improving and adapting to the evolving needs of the talent landscape.

Wondering how you can improve your marketing candidate’s experience during the recruitment process? Take a look at our candidate experience services or get in touch to speak to the team about how we can help.

The post The Top 5 Strategies to Improve Candidate Experience appeared first on The Marketists.