“Over 70% of companies are planning to invest in solutions with recruitment marketing capabilities over the next 12 months.”
This is one of the opening observations in Aptitude Research’s Recruitment Marketing Index 2017, a comprehensive review of the world of recruitment marketing. It’s fascinating.
The report, focused on providing essential information to enable the understanding of the recruitment marketing vendor space, doesn’t rank providers. Rather, it shines a light on the space, and provides some organizing principles for understanding what’s happening in this dynamic and competitive space.
The report starts with an overview of the top 10 trends in recruitment marketing – and they may not be what you expect:
- The need for greater simplicity
- The opportunity in the midmarket
- The cost is justified
- Artificial intelligence is a must-have
- A different set of metrics
- ATS satisfaction increases with an RMP (recruitment marketing platform) investment
- Services take two forms
- Recruitment marketing is an experience solution
- Companies want more use cases
- Inbound marketing is a differentiator
Early in the report, Madeline Laurano, co-founder and chief research officer, defines a recruitment marketing platform as a platform that,
“…manages outbound sourcing, inbound recruitment marketing, and employer branding. A recruitment marketing platform includes capabilities that maintain the employer brand, foster candidate relationships, and enhance messaging and communication efforts. The most critical capabilities in these systems include: Career Site, SEO, Employee Referrals, and Talent Communities/Networks.”
Simply put, it opens the top of the funnel and manages the interactions with talent in a robust and clear way that creates rather than destroys relationships.
The top four priorities of talent acquisition leaders when contemplating investments in their practices are these:
So, providers need to ensure that these four bases are covered. Thanks to Aptitude’s research, you can clearly understand which providers offer which capabilities. It is not surprising that improving the candidate experience is the top of the wish list – and a capability that is no longer a “nice-to-have” feature.
The report is hefty, at 90 pages, but it’s a primer on recruitment marketing. If hiring more people – and more people who fit your organization better – is part of your remit, this report will give you the foundation you need to begin to put your strategies and plans in place.
As usual, the Aptitude Research team has done a great job of both analyzing a critical part of the market, as well as educating the HR professional on providers to consider.
This article originally appeared on ChinaGorman.com.