What’s the best and most effective way to reach candidates? Through compelling, considered, and relevant language.
Content marketers know the importance of using appropriate language. It’s a tried and true approach and it ensures that a website is found by the right audience, in the process driving relevant traffic. Yes, recruiters don’t traditionally think of themselves as marketers, but they should borrow from the content creators' toolbox.
Consider Tone of Voice
With Q1 coming to a close, it’s time to analyse and think through your recruitment practices. An area that’s frequently underdeveloped and underutilised by recruiters is tone of voice. So, recruiters, become better writers, marketers, and creatives – your clients will thank you for it.
Through a thoughtful use of language you can pull candidates through your website, pushing them to apply, or get in touch.
If you’re still unsure about the importance of tone of voice, ask yourself these questions:
- Are your job adverts attracting the right candidates?
- Does the copy and content on your website reflect the values of your ideal candidates?
If your answer to either or both of these questions is no, then it’s time to rethink your website’s gatekeeping strategy. Here are my thoughts on why tone of voice matters for recruiters.
Bad Language, Bad Prospects
For recruiters, relevant CVs are the ideal. In many cases though, poorly constructed content attracts the wrong sort of candidates. This wastes everyone’s time.
You need to consider what your website says about your recruitment agency. If you’re consistently getting bad applications that lead nowhere, then it’s worth rethinking/rewriting the content on your website.
This must be part of a holistic approach. Landing page content, job ads, and general website copy should exist in harmony with one another. Effectively, it’s all about branding. Your brand’s identity should leap from the page; it should shine throughout all of your content drawing like-minded candidates to your branded flame.
If your recruitment agency uses the right sort of language, your brand identity won’t be easily ignored. This will make it much easier for candidates to evaluate whether or not they’re a good fit for you before submitting their CV.
Gatekeeping Matters
Many recruiters view themselves as sales people, and they’re more than happy to use a scatter shot approach in their marketing efforts.
But, just like words aren’t created equally, so too are candidates varied in terms of relevancy. Your job adverts, your landing page content, and your blog posts should leave no question about the type of candidates that you hope to attract.
Weed out the poor candidates, the ones that aren't a good fit for your recruitment agency, by using appropriate language. It’ll save you time, effort, and money, and in fact, it’ll make you more successful as you’re working with better engaged, and more relevant candidates.
Generalised or Specialised
This is a question that plagues a number of professions, but in recruitment it’s just as pertinent. Niche recruitment agencies require a different sort of language to generalised ones. The language that you use should reflect the candidates that you want to work with. Frequently, your tone of voice is the first impression that applicants get of who you are as a recruitment agency, so make it count.
Looking back on Q1, it’s likely that you’re reflecting on areas of your business that you could improve upon. If you’re noticing that your job adverts aren’t effective enough, or you might be aware that your website is pulling in the wrong sort of interest, then it’s time to rethink and rewrite your content.
Stick to Your Branding
From a content marketing perspective, all business communications should share the same tone of voice. Recruitment agencies should work on the areas that make their business unique, and then find clever ways to subtly highlight those traits.
Whatever form that your content takes (job ads, landing pages, web copy, even email correspondence), your voice should be clear and tailored towards your ideal candidate. This will increase your effectiveness as a recruiter, and although it may take more time initially, it will pay off in the long run. One highly engaged, relevant, and skilled candidate is worth far more than ten low level, uninterested applicants.
