Studies consistently show that a majority of the workforce is looking for the next best role all the time — while commuting back and forth to work, at work, at home, and even while spending time with friends. Every act that we as humans are partaking in now is clouded by a new thought: “Where can I find a job next?”

This developing mentality is forcing employers to rethink recruitment marketing and align internal business goals and employer branding needs  to support talent acquisition strategies from the top down. HR departments need help now more than ever in handling the mountain of applicant data that’s part and parcel of the hiring process — they need to find their way within this rabbit hole of disruption and change in order to source, engage and hire the best-fit talent.  

Welcome to the new norm in the omni-channel recruitment marketing methodology...

This new mindset of today’s candidates always being on the lookout for their next job is not only paving the way for new strategies, it’s reshaping the reality of the job market for hiring managers.

Open the door for disconnect — despite the fact it’s a candidate-driven market, many employers have gotten more selective in their job requirements. So while it has become very easy for employers to post and for applicants to respond to job ads, it’s become much harder for companies to actually source and identify the most desired candidates, nurture them and hire them.  

This equation of candidates’ evolved job expectations in combination with employers wanting the best talent — it’s no wonder that businesses across all industries are looking to find their needle in a haystack, develop a solid employer brand, leverage all avenues to source and engage with the ultimate talent for the positions they must fill.

Recruitment marketing.

After many years of trials and tribulations, exercises and experiments, enterprise companies continued to identify the best tools, processes and operations to drive top-tier hiring, impactful candidate engagement and overall positive candidate experiences. What came to life during these attempts was the downright need to take a new approach to recruitment, and that approach was through the eyes of digital marketing.

Hello omni-channel!

Omni-channel recruitment marketing refers to the use of a variety of online marketing methods to source, nurture, engage and hire the best talent - mimicking the blueprint of how marketers attract, nurture and sell to prospects. For both of these practices of recruitment and marketing, the repeat cycles of “post and pray” or even traditional advertising simply don’t work anymore. With the dominance of omni-channel opportunities, persona-based marketing and the injection of social media into our everyday existence, recruiters and marketers alike are able to connect with a diverse population of people and engage them in new, fresh ways to spark brand interest. The ability and opportunity to actively source and strategically engage the right people is a more sustainable model of not just marketing but recruitment as well — hence the birth and rise of this new norm.

Understanding this climate is the first step — the second is differentiating yourself amongst everyone else who is riding this new train.

Moving into the new norm. 

As mentioned above, omni-channel recruitment marketing has ripped a page from the consumer marketing handbook. To move away from old practices and methodologies, it becomes imperative to internalize the underlying reasons why the old and traditional simply won’t cut it anymore.

By leaning on relationship-building efforts via multiple channels of interaction, omni-channel recruitment marketing creates a loyal following of potential candidates long before job openings become available — feeding into the value of future advocacy. How is this accomplished? Strong company branding, combined with strategic content marketing and messaging,, produce more favorable recruitment results through a funnel approach typically equated with sales. The outcome: A much more streamlined, measurable and predictable process.

While moving away from tradition is a key part of this transformation, it has to be noted that recruitment marketing is far different than consumer marketing. While it is an all-encompassing aspect of maintaining a business, recruitment marketing generally has a smaller budget and fewer resources than consumer marketing. Instead, recruitment teams use a longterm approach of creating connections with both active and passive candidates to develop strong talent pipelines, showcase employer brand throughout the candidate lifecycle and impactful relationships. Recruitment marketing drives engagement while consumer marketing drives sales — and this is where global enterprise companies must remain focused.

No one likes change — especially human resource departments. It causes friction, uncertainty, new levels of involvement and risk. But without change, enterprise organizations will fail in the dust of those organizations who are willing to listen to the market, take hold of the new norm and embrace the positive outcomes omni-channel recruitment marketing has to offer.

The importance of change.

Understanding the landscape and the reasons that are driving this change are crucial to finding your way on this new “omni” path; however, what is all of that worth without the value it brings? For years, vendors have been entering the HCM space, shouting from the mouths of journalists that they have the best solutions on the market. While many players are making a splash and creating unnerving buzz in the marketplace, hiring organizations are still shaking their heads and grasping to figure out what true value lies in implementing the right solution for their brand.   

While miles of work and investigation goes into evaluating and implementing the right solution for your business, the core to this process is to break out the value. Having access to a recruitment marketing technology solution that’s supported by a wealth of service partners, backed by seasoned analysts, developers, and support personnel who understand the competitive nature of recruitment is vital to success. The right suite should be offered as an a la carte solution, ready for your brand at your discretion. The right suite should eliminate the friction that makes talent acquisition processes so frustrating and inefficient for job seekers and employers alike. The features and functionality that come with a suite should become the technological conduit that gets the right candidates in front of the right brands to not just meet, but to stay in touch and stand out to one another.

Technology builds the bridge, but personal connection and collaboration are another key element to the success of a recruitment marketing suite that come packaged as the service offering. Technology can absolutely and indefinitely make your life better, but it’s the right suite in combination with the right people that will carry the message of your brand and ignite an engaged community. In this new omni-arena, technology and services go hand-in-hand.

Changing your talent and employer branding strategy doesn’t just mean signing on a dotted line and giving your team a plethora of new tools. For strategic and transparent leaders, it’s crucial that the knowledge and value of these new methodologies and goals start at the top and trickle down to everyone within your organization. For organizations to thrive in this new climate, alignment must be fueled by leaders but carried out by the workforce and supported by the right partners.

Set a new bar of recruitment success.

The recruitment climate is in the early years of change. What is happening today with omni-channel recruitment marketing is simply setting a new stage for what is to come. With the continuing rise of millennials in the workforce and the steady decline of baby boomers, all in combination with the uptake in the economy and rise of new technology, change is the only thing we can embrace.

Today’s market demands that leaders are flexible and open-minded when it comes to talent acquisition strategies. Perhaps relying on the old methods of one-channel sourcing worked in the past — but that single-avenue strategy will not survive in what the future holds for this industry. Between explosive growth, high-turnover, the revival of brick and mortar, and social media turning human interaction on its head, we must prepare to rise above the noise, find our way and get it right. Today there are better ways to get you on the right path to talent success; it just starts with a new norm, a positive outlook, education and belief.