The United States is missing 1.7 million Americans from the workforce compared to February 2020, according to the nation’s Chamber of Commerce. As competition for talent intensifies, recruitment marketing—which likens candidate behavior to consumer behavior—has become a modern option for reaching job seekers.

During isolved’s recent Virtual Connect, Heidi Barnett, CEO of hiring software firm ApplicantPro, and Brian Atwood, ApplicantPro’s chief marketing officer, told the audience that an impactful recruitment marketing strategy blends brand awareness with data-driven outreach.

With job openings outpacing available workers and workforce participation down to 62% (below pre-pandemic levels), Barnett stresses that—in some sectors—there’s a massive labor shortage. “Because it’s so crowded, you need to almost shout to get noticed,” she explains.

Barnett and Atwood say that for today’s job seekers, an organization’s brand is a crucial factor in their decision-making—this includes buying decisions and application decisions. “Seventy-five percent of job seekers consider the employer brand as a factor before applying,” says Atwood. The ApplicantPro team says HR teams can build brand awareness by auditing the current brand perception, showcasing awards, sharing employee stories and leveraging social media to reach candidates directly and authentically.

According to Barnett, data-driven strategies allow HR teams to make informed decisions that enhance the hiring process from application to onboarding. She says recruitment marketing funnels, which guide candidates through stages from initial awareness to hiring, rely on applicant and business data for both short-term and long-term improvements.

Candidates behave like buyers

Many companies run an application process that feels outdated and frustrating, and Neil Costa, founder and CEO of global recruitment marketing agency HireClix, says this is a huge problem. “Career sites act as the welcome mat to your potential employees, and many of them are deplorable,” he says. Instead of relying on the career site, Costa suggests a shift toward an e-commerce-inspired recruitment experience to attract and engage job seekers.

HR leaders know they need more than a career site, according to Costa. “When speaking at recent HR Executive events, I have asked the audience whether they were proud of their career sites, and 100% of the time, only a handful of people raise their hand to say yes,” he says.

However, Costa says that HR leaders don’t have to be stuck with this low level of satisfaction. He says that borrowing these features from the user experience of e-commerce sites can yield significant benefits:

First impressions matter

Costa says consumers have come to expect a certain level of online service because of the progress made in e-commerce in recent years. On top of that, people use their mobile devices to job search just as much or more than they use their computers. This means, at minimum, the application process needs to be quick and mobile-friendly.

Simplified application processes

According to a June 2024 HireClix Candidate Experience Survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers aged 18 and above, long job applications deter 35% of job seekers. Costa says quick-apply options inspired by e-commerce platforms make job applications fast and straightforward for hesitant candidates. “There is a chance to leverage first mover advantage in today’s market given how many organizations have bad creative and old technology at the core of their candidate experience,” according to Costa.

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