1. The document discusses 5 HR strategies for recruiting top talent, focusing on positioning, price, place, product, and promotion. It emphasizes understanding the target audience and their drivers in order to craft meaningful messaging. 2. Generational and cultural influences on candidates are reviewed to help define a persona of the ideal candidate. Consistent branding across all recruitment marketing channels is recommended. 3. Reaching candidates involves using a variety of channels like job boards, events, social media, and providing valuable content to build "social currency" and encourage sharing of the employer brand.

1. © 2015 iCIMS, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
5 HR Strategies to
Recruit Top Talent

2. © 2015 iCIMS, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Recruiting departments are increasingly adopting marketing techniques to
attract the best talent. In this whitepaper we will cover topics surrounding
employment branding such as targeting, positioning, and messaging as
well as the best ways to reach your candidates using social media, search
engine optimization, and mobile accessibility.
What is Marketing and How Does it Relate
to Recruiting?
Traditionally, marketing is defined as messaging that indicates how your company
satisfies needs, wants, and demands in such a way as to make “selling” unnecessary.
This is accomplished with something called the marketing mix – defined by the 4
Ps – which include product, price, placement, and promotion. For recruiting, you can
traditionally assume that the product is the job, the price is the salary, the place is
the office location and promotion is through job boards. The problem, however, is
that the expectations of buyers and candidates have evolved and therefore, so has
the marketing mix. Now, many marketers are considering a 5th P – positioning.
1. Positioning
Selling Points
At a high-level, positioning is a marketing technique that presents products in the
best light to different target audiences. It includes messaging and experiences
that are meaningful, differentiating, and credible. Positioning takes the message
involved in the original marketing mix to a deeper level that encompasses a
comparison of your product, price, place, and promotion to those offered by others
“selling” the same things. But what is the meaning of this phrase and how is it
applied to recruiting? We’ll start by defining “target audience.”
Target Audience
Any time you are marketing a product (or a job) you need to focus all your activities
on speaking to the needs and wants of the buyer (the candidate). This means you
must understand the needs and wants of your candidates before defining the
messaging. Once you know your target (the candidate), you can speak to that
person directly using a message that is most meaningful to them. So, the first step
is to develop a thorough understanding of the hard and soft skills that a candidate
will need to be successful within your organization.
Hard skills refer to education and experience required by a particular position.
Many hard skills can be taught or developed overtime. Soft skills, however, cannot
be taught and at times, can be hard to find. Depending on the job, sometimes it is
better to recruit based on soft skills alone.
Keep in mind that we as humans are not just made up of a list of skills. We also have
things that drive us to be successful. For most, some of these drivers are the origin of
the hard and soft skills. For example, career aspirations are the reason many people
pursue an education in a particular area. Drivers are developed or at least impacted
by several factors, including the generation and the culture to which the candidate
relates. Success in employment branding, and thus in recruitment, is directly linked to
successfully speaking to these drivers.

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Traditional 4 P’s
Promotion
Job Boards
Place
Location
Price
Salary
Product
The Job
+ the 5th P
Positioning
Selling Points
!
Promotion
Reaching Candidates
Place
Cultural Environment
Price
Opportunity Cost
Product
Brand Image
2. Price
Opportunity Cost
Promoting your jobs is not just about posting on a job board anymore; today it is
about creating an experience and recruiting socially. Today, people will move half way
across the world for the right “place”, referring to culture and environment rather
than geographic location. Price is no longer just about salary – now it is reputation,
opportunity, and opportunity cost. For example, the best candidates today are all
about “personal brands”, and therefore your value as an employer is wholly judged based on
impressions and experience. These candidates question every career move, wondering - what
does having that company on my resume say to others about me? Does the company indicate
that I am the traditional corporate type or the creative, laid-back start-up type?
Generational Influencers
Generation Age
Born
(approx.)
% of US
Civilization
Labor
Key
Characteristics
Assets They Bring
to the Workplace
Silent 65+ 1929 - 45 4.60
Respectful of authority
and tradition they are loyal
to their employers
Hard working, stable,
loyal, thorough, detail-
oriented, focused, possess
emotional maturity
Baby Boomers 46-64 1946 - 64 38.09
Hardworking “work to live”
philosophy. They are redefining
retirement as most stay active
and continue some form of
involvement in the workplace
Team perspective,
dedicated, experienced,
knowledgeable
Generation X 30-45 1965 - 80 32.12
Tech-savvy and hardworking.
They want the family-friendly
practices begun by the Baby
Boomers, such as flextime, job
sharing and telecommuting
Independent, adaptable,
creative, tech-literate,
willing to challenge the
status quo
Generation Y 18-29 1981 - 92 23.86
Smart, easily bored, eager to
move up and value balance.
They like stimulation, variety
and challenge, are comfortable
with ethnic diversity and prefer
to work in teams.
Optimistic, able to multi-
task, technologically
savvy, driven to learn,
team-oriented, socially
responsible
Generation Z
17 and
under
1993 -
present
1.33
Self-educated, capable of
processing information quickly,
smarter, less likely to be team-
oriented than older generations
Able to process large
amounts of information,
creativity, tech-oriented
Source: http://www.catalyst.org/knowledge/generations-workplace-united-states-canada

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As you can see by this grid, different people are motivated by different things. In
turn, they also bring different value to the workplace. For example, let’s compare
the “silent generation” with Gen Y or Millennials. The silent generation likes stability,
but Gen Y, on the other hand, likes variety. Gen Y also prefers to work in team
environments, whereas the upcoming Gen Z generally would rather work alone.
Understanding all this is extremely important when promoting your employment
brand and targeting your message so that you are speaking to the right people.
3. Place
Cultural Environment
Cultural Influencers
Culture also has a significant impact on candidate drivers. A study by Stanford
University gives a little glimpse into a few aspects of American, Japanese, and
European culture. Americans focus on individuality. This implies, for example, many
Americans are inspired by individual recognition. The Japanese are collectivists,
implying that they prefer group benefits. Europeans may be inspired by benefits
to society as a whole, considering the dedication to social good. This is particularly
important to know when recruiting globally. Again, the reason for targeting is to
learn to speak the right language to the right people.
America Japan Europe
Individuality Collectivism
Appreciation for
Aesthetics
Equality Behavior by Status Intellectualism
Freedom Harmony Tradition
Mobility Self-Improvement Leisure
Competition Self-Criticism Social Good
Personas
All of the drivers prompted from the individual’s personality, generation, and
cultural elements will either attract or deter a candidate from engaging with your
organization. Therefore, alignment of the candidate drivers with the employer’s
culture is key to attracting the right candidates and motivating them to apply. That
alignment will ultimately improve job satisfaction, employee engagement, and
employment retention.
Successfully targeting your recruitment marketing message requires you to first
create a persona of the perfect candidate. The persona is a combination of hard and
soft skills as well as drivers that align with your company’s culture. Remember that
there are hard and soft skills required to be a success in the individual position and
in the company as a whole.

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1. Create a Persona of the Perfect Candidate
a. Candidate’s hard and soft skills required to succeed in this position
b. Candidate’s drivers align with our company’s unique culture
2. Provide Consistent Messaging that ‘Speaks’ Directly to the
Persona You Created
Once this persona is created, communicate your message in a meaningful,
differentiating, and credible way.
4. Product
Brand Image
Brand Messaging
Messaging is the way you “speak” to your candidates through words, symbols, and
signals. Messaging is even influenced by what you do not say. Most concerning is
how deeply your message is impacted by what others say about you. For example,
what are former employees and other candidates saying about your company on
Glassdoor and social media sites? Are current employees making a good impression
with their LinkedIn profiles? What are customers saying about your company on
Yelp? It’s extremely important to have a “pulse” on this ongoing conversation, as
one in every four US consumers say they are more likely to tell family, friends,
and coworkers about a bad experience with a product or service than a good one,
according to LoyaltyOne’s COLLOQUY report.
In addition to this, messaging is visual. This refers to your choice of color and the
content, such as videos, images, and social media links. As well, the presence or
absence of video and images also speak to a candidate. This is what we refer to as
the experience you provide to potential candidates.
Incorporating Positioning into your Employment Brand
Now that you know who you are looking for from the persona development, and
you understand that the message must speak to that person – you need to pull
it together into a message that attracts the right candidates. To accomplish that,
remember these key points:
Show How Your Company is Unique
• Don’t Let Your Unique Qualities Alienate Good Candidates
Create an Experience Consistent with Your Brand Image
• Interactivity, Video, Images, Social Media, Educational Materials
Show You Appreciate Candidate’s Diversity
• Multigenerational Hiring
• Industry Experience
• Culture
Keep the Message Consistent in ALL Communications
• Career Portal
• Social Media
• Job Listings
• Screening and Interviewing Questions

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5. Promotion
Reaching Candidates
Once your message and position are defined, you are ready to share the
communications. As you can see from the graph below, there are a lot of channels
through which to communicate. It is important to remember that in order to realize
any return on investment, a good recruitment marketing plan needs to be multi-
faceted and strategic.
Your
Employment
Brand
Big Job
Boards
(Monster,
Career
Builder)
N
iche
Job
Boards
(Industry, Professional
Associations)
Events (M
eet ups,
Trade
Show
s)
Career MicrositesBusiness Networks
Social
Media
Employee
Referrals
Job Board Posting
To get the best return on investment you need to advertise where the right
candidates are looking. Candidates are searching for opportunities on career sites
and career portals, job boards, business networks, and social networks. Job boards
are the most common advertising method for many companies and are a great
place to advertise your open positions.
ROI can be maximized by further targeting your communications. The goal isn’t
quantity –it’s quality. Therefore, consider job board advertising more selectively.
For example, niche boards and professional association boards, often bring
in high quality candidates as they are likely to be more involved in career
development activities.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO), is the practice of improving the visibility
and ranking of a website in a search engine’s “organic”, or un-paid, results. In
most cases, the higher a site ranks on the search results page, the more visitors
the website will receive from the search engine’s users. Although traditional
recruitment advertising techniques generate visits to your career site, more and
more candidates are using major search engines like Google or Bing to find jobs.

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To simplify SEO, many recruiters are leveraging career microsites. Microsites are
small search engine optimized websites that advertise your jobs and point traffic to
your career portal and/or Talent CRM.
Talent CRM
For years, sales and marketing professionals have used CRM software (Customer
Relationship Management) to build and nurture relationships with sales prospects.
As today’s recruiters struggle to hire the best candidates despite the skills gap,
recruiters are turning into marketing professionals as they “sell” their company’s
employment brand in an attempt to attract top talent. Now, recruitment
professionals need to build and nurture candidate relationships with the help of
a Talent CRM, which can facilitate their proactive recruitment efforts.
For example, how many times have highly skilled, intelligent, candidates visited
your career portal, found no jobs available matching their skills, and went on to visit
your competitors’ career portals? How many talented people have you met and lost
contact with? No one can actually answer those questions, but the point is clear.
Successful recruiters must have a way to keep track of candidate information,
even when a candidate is not ready to apply for a job with their organization.
Social Media and Mobile Accessibility
Most organizations have adopted social media and developed “social recruiting”
strategies to attract and recruit top talent. Often overlooked however, is the fact
that most social media consumption is done on a mobile device. Adding a social
and mobile component to your recruiting strategy gives current employees
a way to share job openings with their friends. Employee referrals are still a
top source of applicant flow and a very effective cost-per-hire strategy.
A key element in using mobile and social for recruiting is consistency. Because
some social sites, like Twitter, limit the length of a message, the focus of
your messaging should be to drive people to a place where they can see your
employment brand – i.e. your career site. This is where your investment in a
robust career site and realistic job postings will pay off.
A Marketing Secret: Social Currency
Marketers use research to understand what grabs buyers, makes buyers dive into
seller’s content, and ultimately what makes customers tell others about it. They
provide content so that people will read and share it, thus creating word-of-mouth
advertising. This concept is known as “social currency” and for recruiters, the same
findings will hold true – your “buyers” are your candidates.
Social currency is what people (such as job seekers) gain from sharing
information. People gravitate to and tend to share information that builds
up their importance. Ever wonder why people are so adamant to get twitter
followers? It is validation of their importance, or their social currency. So how
does this apply to HR and recruiting? Simply, if you want to attract candidate’s
attention, engage them, and spread the word about your employment brand
further, feed a candidate’s social currency.
So how can the talent acquisition team provide social currency? By doing more than
just promoting open jobs. Instead, provide candidates with valuable information by
telling them more about your company, and promote that content on social media.
Other ideas include telling candidates how to prepare for an interview, upcoming
recruiting events, or what you look for in employees.

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Conclusion
Today recruiting is all about marketing. Recruiters are now responsible for creating
the employment value proposition, which comes from the 5 Ps – Positioning, Price,
Place, Product, and Promotion. Positioning refers to the message you provide to
your target audience – it must be meaningful, differentiating, and credible. As long
as you do so within legal parameters, in a non-discriminatory fashion, targeting your
recruitment efforts will result in the best return on investment for your recruitment
marketing dollars. Identify the skills required to succeed in your company as well
as the drivers that inspire your target candidates to apply. From that, develop a
persona of the best candidate and design messaging to speak consistently across
all media to that persona in terms that inspire them to apply. Use the targeting and
persona information to communicate with candidates on your career site, within
job descriptions, on job boards, social media, etc. To attract passive and active
candidates for your talent pipeline, feed their social currency with interesting and
sharable content. By incorporating techniques, you can bolster your recruitment
efforts, set your employment brand apart and drive recruitment.
How iCIMS Can Help
iCIMS delivers the industry’s premier on-demand Talent Platform by offering robust
yet scalable technology, capable of powering multiple talent initiatives within one
core platform. Recognized as the leading provider in talent acquisition software,
iCIMS’ Talent Platform automates and streamlines the end-to-end candidate
lifecycles for industry-leading organizations around the world.
iCIMS makes it easy for our clients to take advantage of the power of SEO.
Customers that utilize Career Site SEO are in a better position to achieve top search
engine rankings and, in turn, drive more traffic to their career sites. Powered by
JobTarget and seamlessly integrated with iCIMS Recruit, the OneClick Job Board
Posting tool allows users to easily post jobs out to multiple third-party job boards,
automatically track candidate sources and report on source effectiveness within the
iCIMS Talent Platform.
The iCIMS Talent Platform provides organizations with the tools to succeed in
a new talent marketplace. With social and mobile recruitment features, iCIMS
makes it easier than ever to launch, capture and measure data through a variety
of social networks. With robust candidate management tools (CRM), iCIMS offers
a holistic approach to talent acquisition and enables organizations to tie their key
business objectives with their human capital acquisition processes. In addition to
this superior Talent Platform, iCIMS clients benefit from an unparalleled customer
experience and award winning customer support teams.
To learn more about the iCIMS, call 1-800-889-4422 or take a look at our demo at
http://www3.icims.com/demos/SEM_Long_Form_v2/?p=1&n=1524&t=1542.