Open job positions have steadily increased in recent years while the number of qualified, available, and applying candidates has decreased, making recruitment a major pressure point for companies in the health science space and beyond. How can you attract talent to fill critical roles within your company?
Building a top-tier team starts with marketing. At its heart, recruitment is a marketing and sales program: what you’re selling is your employer brand, meaning what makes you a great place to work, and your customers are your potential employees. Just as you would with any other sales campaign, build targeted strategies and customized messaging to engage new prospects, retain the attention of candidates, and raise your business’ visibility above competing employers.
Here are six marketing tactics you can use to boost your recruitment.
1. Consistent Branding
Brand recognition is just as important in recruitment as it is in sales. Consider how powerful it would be if candidates saw your logo and immediately thought, “Great place to build a career.”
Create a brand you can sell to potential employees that clearly demonstrates why you’re such a great employer, whether that’s culture, growth potential, hybrid work environment, or an exciting industry. When creating your recruitment brand, be sure it’s rooted in the causes or values you stand for as a company, so candidates start to build a personal connection to those values from the outset. For example, CROs looking to build out a research team might want to highlight their regulatory expertise, thought leadership, or exciting areas of expertise.
Also, ensure your recruitment brand is in line with who your company truly is. After all, transparency and honesty go a long way in building trust and rapport with potential candidates at the interview stage.
Once you have created a recruitment brand, develop a campaign concept to illustrate it. Keep your branding consistent throughout campaign components such as work culture videos, social media graphics featuring employee testimonials and company promotion, press releases about key company hires, and branded “why” mission statements.
2. Branded Career Webpage
Applicants can scroll through hundreds of job postings before choosing a select few for submission. What gets them to click “Apply”? An exciting careers webpage.
Your careers webpage should be an inspiring and informative representation of your business in one easy-to-read place, illustrating enticing details your life science company has to offer potential recruits, from working with industry-leading experts and quality of work to culture and business stability. However, since today’s candidates value flexibility and work/life balance, show you’re an employee-centered company by highlighting benefits like parental leave, remote or hybrid work, or flexible PTO.
3. Brand Promotion
You’ve created a unique, enticing recruitment brand — now you need to make sure the right candidates see it. Reach targeted audiences to position your company even more competitively in a saturated market with promotions like paid search and social media campaigns as well as organic social media account management. Create exciting job postings in line with your recruitment brand and build a presence in industry publications. You can also promote your recruitment brand by joining advocacy groups, as this establishes your company as a business that cares about social issues, or networking groups to keep your brand front of mind.
4. Trade Show Recruitment
Trade shows and other health science industry events, such as the SCOPE Conference or DCAT, are brimming with qualified candidates — are you prepared to attract them? Turn any trade show into a successful recruitment event with tactics such as presence strategy that includes which shows best align with your recruitment goals, custom-branded assets, and association advertising. Ensure maximum ROI for your trade show recruitment marketing by mirroring tactics for both in-person and virtual events. For example, create a virtual career fair or online recruitment trade show booth to drive traffic to your careers webpage and boost brand recognition.
5. Employee Referral Programs
Your employees are your best resource for recruitment. After all, no one knows what it’s like to work for your company better than your employees. What’s more, people want to work with like-minded individuals whom they trust and have relationships with. Strategies like employee referral incentive programs and employee awareness email campaigns increase high-quality leads and speed up the hiring process.
6. Strategy for Employer Profile Sites
Potential employees put a lot of stock in sites like Glassdoor, ZipRecruiter, and Indeed, so it’s critical your company’s employer profiles are accurate reflections of why you’re a great place to build a career. Consider and create strategies to encourage and manage reviews so you can have a strong company presence on these sites.
Feeling overwhelmed? SCORR offers recruitment marketing solutions to expand your applicant pool and efficiently fill open roles. From a branded careers web presence and trade show assistance to employee referral programs and digital campaign promotions, we take care of the details so you can focus on growing your business with a top-tier team.
About the Author
Carrie Whiting