Member Article

Recruiters and marketers think alike

There’s an interesting fact highlighted in the last REC industry report: 81 percent of the 31,140 staffing and recruiting companies are micro-businesses with fewer than 10 employees.

Now why’s that? Why would the industry be saturated with recruiters operating on a very small scale (apart from barriers to entry being low)?

Well, here’s one theory…

Recruiters build relationships. Marketers build brands.

Recruiters are great communicators who use their innate skills to attract high quality talent, manage the candidate journey to reach the finish line and fill that client vacancy – it’s what they do best.

With a natural marketing flair, recruiters do everything a professional marketer would do – keep up to date with industry news, communicate often with potential clients and candidates to remain top of mind and one step ahead of the competition.

But there is one fundamental difference: recruiters talk, marketers write. And unless content marketing is baked into the company strategy, it’s difficult to increase brand awareness outside recruiters’ own networks to grow the business exponentially.

Relationships are king

It’s a bottom-heavy industry with over 25,000 companies (81%) employing a skeleton staff, so relationships are key in driving business to fill a quota of vacancies to keep the company profitable.

But micro-businesses must come to a reflection point once they’ve hit that growth ceiling – do they remain niche and nimble or invest in growth? And with competitors snapping at their heels, how do they avoid shrinkage? The obvious answer would be to build a strong brand presence and stand out from the crowd.

The yin and yang

Successful recruiters have many stories to tell and a wealth of experience and opinions to express. Capturing these as case studies, thought-provoking opinion pieces and expert advice is a powerful differentiating factor and when posted online, works like a charm in spreading the word to establish authority in the industry.

But to elicit those golden nuggets of information and start a drumbeat of stories, news and opinions requires a particular skill set – those of a professional marketer who’s practised at writing and driving high quality content to showcase the business and leave a lasting impression.

Importantly, these stories can empower others within the business to leverage the brand – to grow their own networks and relationships and make the step-change needed on the journey to take a business from micro to macro.

Combining the expertise of the recruiter with the talent of the marketer is a winning formula in building brand awareness and credibility. And, ultimately, being top of mind when there are vacancies to be filled!

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Nicola Tilling .