Why Your HR & Marketing Teams Need to Be Friends
A comprehensive understanding of the role, knowledge of the right key words to attract relevant job seekers, and a creative flair are just some of the qualities required to execute an effective job listing as part your recruitment advertising campaign. However, these qualities don’t sit solely with the HR or Marketing departments. Thus, HR and Marketing must work together when it comes to the all-important task of recruitment advertising. After all, without an informative and captivating job listing, you’re unlikely to yield the number and quality of applicants you need to create a high-calibre shortlist. As branding company ‘Emotive Brand’ puts it, “HR understands what matters to employees, but Marketing knows how to capture their attention.” Read on to learn how Marketing and HR complement one another, and the steps you need to take to establish a value-adding relationship between the two.
Where HR shines
Employment Office Recruitment Advertising Specialist, Alexa Littleton, says HR, in collaboration with the Hiring Manager, provides the vital information needed to recruit. “HR offers the bread and butter for a job description – from the necessary skills and qualifications to key aspects of the employment contract, including compensation and working hours. These aspects are the basics of an informative job description, and are fundamental to any successful recruitment effort.” However, she notes that HR does not necessarily know how to present this key information in the most effective way to ensure quality applications.
What Marketing brings to the table
When invited to collaborate in the recruitment advertising process, Marketing adds an important (and often underestimated) dimension to the job listing. Marketing is better equipped to consider the recruitment campaign from the perspective of candidates, and thus, tailor the job listing to ‘sell’ the role and your workplace.
Marketers will take a tedious list of role requirements, often crafted by HR to attract high-quality candidates, and play with the language to better reflect the dynamics of the role. For example, instead of stating that a managerial role requires ‘leadership,’ marketers would reconsider if this term was the most-fitting to describe the quality necessary for the role. In this instance, it would be more comprehensive to say, ‘a leadership background is ideal, as you will be directing a fast-paced team of junior and senior professionals across multiple departments.’ Specifying how leadership is relevant to the role reveals more information about the team the new hire will work within.
Further, the Marketing team will consider other important factors that should be included in the job listing – elements to captivate relevant job seekers. This includes details of the workplace culture and employee benefits that your organisation is proud of. Include three to five of your most outstanding benefits, and direct job seekers to your careers website to learn more about your culture.
Marketers should also be consulted when it comes to the graphic design of job ads – they have an eye for aesthetics. Why simply attach your logo to your job listing? Don’t underestimate the power of a strong image; Social Media and Content Analysts report that visuals increase user engagement by up to 94 per cent. Consider how an engaging image or video could impact your recruitment results. In effect, the Marketing team can shape a recruitment advertising campaign to reflect a positive Employer Brand.
Establish a productive relationship between HR and Marketing
Don’t worry – there’s no need to overhaul your recruitment advertising strategy to marry your HR and Marketing departments. All it takes is communication between the departments throughout the recruitment advertising process.
- Host a HR/ Marketing Workshop where Marketing has the opportunity to review past recruitment advertising campaigns and offer feedback. Recruitment Advertising Specialist, Alexa Littleton says that HR should present their current campaigns and listen to Marketing’s guidance. “Of course, HR will not be able to take up every suggestion offered by Marketing, and Marketing won’t necessarily agree with HR about what should be included in a job ad. However, this workshop will establish a mutual understanding of the strengths and limitations of both teams for future collaboration,” she says.
- Marketing should own the design. Before the job listing has been crafted, HR and Marketing should meet to identify the important aspects of the role that must be communicated. From here, Marketing can create a relevant and engaging graphic to showcase the recruitment campaign. Starting the graphic design early in the recruitment advertising process means that if multiple drafts are required, the Marketing team will have the graphics finalised by the next meeting, after the job listing has been written by HR.
- HR should own the job listing but Marketing should improve it. After the job listing has been drafted by HR, Marketing should ensure the job ad not only describes the ideal candidate, but is written in an attractive way to highlight the company’s employer brand. Brand consistency is key here, but at the same time, different roles require specific employee benefits and varying aspects of your employer brand to be articulated. For example, when recruiting a junior, highlight your company leadership or volunteering program. A middle to senior professional on the other hand would find flexibility and parental benefits attractive.
The additional step of engaging Marketing with HR, compared to the traditional recruitment process where HR handles the recruitment process, is simple but will make all the difference in honing-in on candidates who identify with your culture.
Editor’s Note: Powerful job listing make up just one part of a successful recruitment advertising campaign. Our Recruitment Advertising Specialists at Employment Office use comprehensive recruitment advertising strategies to magnify an organisation’s hiring potential and uncover their next star. Partner with our team to execute a holistic outstanding recruitment campaign that harnesses both active (niche and generalist job boards) and passive candidate attraction strategies. Contact us today to learn more about our proven approach.
