Recruitment marketing is the use of marketing techniques to attract, engage and convert potential candidates. It covers everything that happens before someone applies, and much of what keeps them interested afterwards: your careers site, job adverts, social media, content, email, events and paid campaigns.
It works alongside employer branding. Employer branding defines and shapes your reputation as an employer; recruitment marketing takes that reputation to the people you want to hire, for the roles you need to fill now and later.
The recruitment marketing funnel
| Stage | Candidate's question | Recruitment marketing activity |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness | "Who is this employer?" | Social media, employee stories, events, sponsored content, search |
| Consideration | "Would I want to work there?" | Careers site, team pages, reviews, content about the work |
| Interest | "Is there a role for me?" | Job adverts, job alerts, talent community sign-up |
| Application | "Is it worth applying?" | Clear, short application; process explained |
| Nurture | "Not now, but maybe later" | Talent pool emails, event invitations, re-engagement campaigns |
Most of the people you would like to hire are not applying today. Recruitment marketing keeps them aware of you until they are.
Recruitment marketing strategy: step by step
1. Start from the hiring plan
Which roles, how many, where and by when? Prioritise the roles that are hardest or most expensive to fill. Our recruitment strategy template helps structure this.
2. Define your employee value proposition
CIPD describes the EVP as what the organisation stands for, offers and requires as an employer. Keep it specific and true, and adapt the emphasis for different roles. See employee value proposition examples.
3. Build candidate personas
For each key role, write a short profile: experience, what they care about in a job, where they spend time online and offline, how they search for jobs, and what would make them move. Interview recent hires in those roles to build it.
4. Choose channels
| Channel | Good for | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Careers site | Every role; the destination for most campaigns | Mark up jobs with JobPosting structured data so they can appear in Google's job search |
| Job boards | Active job seekers | Mix general and niche boards |
| Professional networks | Professional and specialist roles | Organic posts from employees often reach further than company pages |
| Social media | Awareness, entry-level and volume roles, employer brand content | Match platform to persona |
| Search (organic and paid) | People searching for roles and employers | Careers content can rank for role and location searches |
| Email and talent communities | Nurturing past applicants and interested people | Segment by role and location |
| Events and campus | Graduates, local volume hiring, specialist communities | Capture contact details with consent |
| Employee referrals | Most roles | See our employee referral programme template |
| Community and diversity partners | Reaching under-represented groups | Long-term relationships work better than one-off ads |
Acas recommends advertising in at least two different ways or places to reach a wider range of people and reduce the risk of discrimination.
5. Create content
Content that works for recruitment marketing shows the real job:
- day-in-the-life posts and videos from employees
- team pages explaining what the team does and how it works
- the hiring process explained, stage by stage
- project stories and problems the team has solved
- benefits and policies described concretely
- answers to the questions candidates ask most
- a realistic job preview for high-turnover roles
6. Write job adverts that convert
- a job title people actually search for
- location, working pattern and salary range where you can share it
- what the person will do and why it matters, in the first lines
- three to five real requirements, separated from nice-to-haves
- the selection process and timeline
- one clear way to apply
Our job posting template and job description builder help.
7. Nurture your talent pool
Collect contact details (with consent) from event attendees, silver-medal candidates and people who signed up for alerts. Send occasional, relevant emails: new roles in their area, team news, events. Keep your talent pool segmented and clean.
8. Measure and optimise
Track each channel through to hires, not just clicks (see metrics below), and move budget towards what works.
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Inclusive and compliant job advertising
This is general information, not legal advice.
- UK: Acas warns that terms such as "recent graduate" or "highly experienced" can discriminate on age, and that titles like "barmaid" or "handyman" imply you want a man or a woman. It advises using inclusive language that defines the job, not the applicant.
- US: the EEOC says it is illegal to publish a job advert that shows a preference for, or discourages people from applying because of, a protected characteristic; its example is an ad seeking "recent college graduates", which may discourage people over 40. It also notes that word-of-mouth recruitment can be discriminatory if it keeps the workforce largely one group.
- Everywhere: describe genuine requirements, avoid coded language, and reach beyond one channel. Our guide to unconscious bias in recruitment covers more.
Recruitment marketing metrics
| Metric | What it tells you |
|---|---|
| Careers site visitors and conversion to application | Whether the site persuades people to apply |
| Applicants by source | Which channels bring volume |
| Qualified applicants by source | Which channels bring the right people |
| Hires by source | Which channels actually produce hires |
| Cost per applicant and cost per hire by source | Where budget works hardest |
| Application completion rate | Whether the application process loses people |
| Talent pool size and engagement | Whether you are building future pipeline |
| Offer acceptance rate | Whether the promise holds up at the decision point |
For the wider set, see how to measure recruitment effectiveness.
Recruitment marketing tools
- Applicant tracking system (ATS) for source tracking and applications
- Careers site builder to publish jobs and content
- Candidate relationship management (CRM) to build and email talent pools
- Programmatic job advertising to spread job-board spend automatically by performance
- Analytics connecting channels to hires
Start with what your ATS already does, and add tools when a specific gap appears.
FAQs
What is the difference between recruitment marketing and employer branding?
Employer branding is about your overall reputation as an employer and the EVP behind it. Recruitment marketing is the set of campaigns and channels that bring that message to specific candidates for specific roles.
Who is responsible for recruitment marketing?
Usually talent acquisition, sometimes with a dedicated recruitment marketing specialist, working with the marketing team on brand, content and paid channels.
Does recruitment marketing work for small businesses?
Yes. A clear careers page, specific job adverts, employees sharing roles and a simple talent pool can be run by one person and make a real difference to the applicants you attract.