If you are an HR professional who is in the business of recruiting top talent, you’re also a marketer—whether you identify as one or not. It’s truer today than ever before that recruitment and marketing go hand in hand. With so much competition in the hiring market, niche opportunities, and fastidious job seekers, as a recruiter, you need to identify what makes your company special and market that message to candidates in an authentic and attractive way.

Recruitment is no longer just about filling open spots—it’s about staffing an agile, diverse, and strong team that will support your business goals and company mission. That’s why it’s important for you to do your part in attracting the right talent and embrace a marketing mindset.

Beyond providing for a better hiring outcome in general, here are 10 recruitment marketing benefits that make having a clear and defined hiring strategy a must in today’s job market.

1. Corporate alignment 

In a company with various departments, different teams are understandably preoccupied with different missions. A recruitment marketing strategy creates an opportunity for everyone to get on the same page. Leaders can define company goals and determine what types of employees will help them achieve their objectives. With their input, HR teams can build candidate personas that support company culture or fill gaps in diversity—whether culturally or cognitively. Recruitment marketing benefits overall company alignment on its wants and needs—and that’s just the beginning.

2. Stronger candidates 

When following a recruitment marketing strategy, you’ll have a more targeted approach for sourcing candidates. That is, compared to simply posting a job and sifting through applications, you’ll tailor your brand message to match the type of candidate you hope to attract. This in itself should help garner attention from people who not only have the right qualifications, but also the qualities you want. And one of the biggest mistakes often made by recruiters or HR professionals, is only looking for talent when you need it. A strong strategy will connect you with top talent on a running basis. Make connections even if there isn’t an open role today—there could be one in the near future.

3. Reduced time to hire

One of the more tangible recruitment marketing benefits is a reduced time to hire. By proactively building a talent pipeline, you’ll always have a pool of qualified candidates that meets your needs when a position opens up. Often, time to hire is a key performance indicator (KPI) for HR professionals so you might as well boost your own job performance by saving time and money for the business with a recruitment marketing strategy. 

4. Better retention 

When you hire the right people, they’re more likely to stay with your company because their ideals and passions match that of your brand’s. The qualities of your employer brand that first attracted them in the initial job description should continue to engage them now as employees. As one of the top recruitment marketing benefits, a better retention rate not only cuts down on the time needed to fill open roles because there are less vacancies, but also supports your company’s bottom line. Which brings us to our next benefit…

5. Better ROI

Recruitment has and always will cost money. However, with the right recruitment marketing strategy, you can be more calculated about how to spend your budget. For instance, you can target the right audience and get your marketing materials in front of the candidates that best match your needs. Take social media advertising: you can segment who sees your ad so if you have a job post for developers in San Francisco, you can send out your message to people who most likely belong to that specialized group. This targeted social media strategy generates a higher return on your recruitment marketing investment than just sharing a post with a non-targeted audience and attracting a few matches.  

6. Strengthened employer brand

Recruitment marketing tactics will organically bolster the candidate experience, and in turn, your employer brand. Typically, these strategies call for companies to invest time and energy in hiring resources. This can include things like a redesign of your careers page, newly dedicated social media pages, and improved processes for applications and interviews. Improving your candidate experience is just one of the recruitment marketing benefits that impacts the employer brand. Consumer opinion and existing employees can also influence the employer brand in a positive way.

7. Increased employee engagement 

Engaged employees are extremely beneficial to the workplace as they lower retention, boost productivity, and enhances company culture. One way to boost employee engagement is to involve existing employees in your recruitment marketing strategy. Most of your employees have large personal social networks that they can easily tap into and share content about your company to prospective candidates. Whether you offer referral bonuses, feature top talent on social media, or reward employee loyalty with yearly incentives—monetary or not—word will spread that your brand is one worth considering. On top of that, top employees will stay engaged and committed—especially if they feel their opinion is valued enough to support a new hire.

8. Measurable success

When you can measure successes and failures, you can learn from them. Recruitment marketing techniques are highly measurable and there are many tools that helps track and report data such as pipeline generation, conversion rates, candidate engagement, and more. These metrics are super valuable in a competitive market. Social recruiting, paid advertising, and e-mail marketing are all easily measurable so if something is not working, your team can easily make adjustments and stay agile. 

9. Fortified consumer relationships

Out of all the recruitment marketing benefits, this benefit will likely make your marketing department most happy. It may not cross their minds, but a high-quality workforce has a direct correlation to happier customers. In fact, according to our 2017 Employer Branding Study, 64% of consumers have stopped purchasing products or services from a company after hearing news of that company’s poor employee treatment. The way companies treat their employees is a living example of their mission and values, and that will either attract or repel consumers. By investing in your employees and hiring the right people, your customer will not only associate your company as a positive workplace but also a trustworthy brand to give their business to.

10. Guaranteed growth

It’s simple really, the more time you invest in a recruitment marketing strategy, the better your talent pool will be. Taking less time to hire, decreasing retention, and having more engaged employees only gives your business a competitive advantage. In many ways, recruitment marketing is the gift that keeps on giving.

Tackling any task with a mindful, targeted approach will typically yield better results. Spend some time with team members to evaluate your current tactics. Identify what works and what could use some improvement. Define your ideal candidate persona and research attributes that would appeal to that kind of person. To experience any of these recruitment marketing benefits mentioned above, you’ll need a strategy tailored to your business and its goals. To get started, check out this recruitment marketing article that breaks seven recruitment marketing strategies into easy-to-tackle steps.