Every business needs a strategy for recruiting and hiring better talent. Building a robust HR department and developing better recruiting tools can help, but you'll also need to think about your marketing and PR strategies. For example, fostering better content on a company blog can help you attract new talent – but how? And what strategies can you use to be successful in this pursuit?
Why Blogging?
First, why should you consider blogging as a strategy to help attract new talent?
- It’s easy and inexpensive. It’s easier than ever to attain the knowledge necessary to create a blog; for example, resources like The Blog Starter are almost exclusively dedicated to helping people like you create successful blogs from scratch. If you shop around for website builders and hosting options, you can reduce your costs to a minimum. The combination of these effects makes blogging highly accessible, inexpensive, and relatively easy, especially at the start. Accordingly, there isn't much risk in pursuing a blogging strategy in addition to your other hiring and recruiting efforts.
- It can help you generate traffic. Many organizations turn to blogging as a reliable strategy for generating new traffic to the website. This is because blogging can generate traffic across multiple channels and in multiple ways. If you optimize for strategically valuable target keywords, blogging can help you practice search engine optimization (SEO) and earn more organic traffic from search engine results pages (SERPs). If you build links to your blog posts, you can generate more referral traffic. If you post links from social media to your blog, you can generate more social traffic. And once you generate a loyal base of readers, you'll generate direct traffic as well.
- It’s where applicants and candidates will look first. Many of your applicants and candidates will examine your company blog to determine whether your company is a good one to work for. Obviously, this is only one component of the research they'll be doing, but it is an impactful one. If you can make a good first impression on applicants and candidates reviewing your company blog, you'll be in a much better position to attract them to your business.
- It’s an opportunity to show off. A company blog is a great place to show off. It's your opportunity to showcase your latest accomplishments and achievements, talk about the volunteer efforts you're making, and brag about the ways you make the world a better place. In other words, it's an opportunity where you can talk all about the merits of your business and make it look more attractive to prospective employees.
- It’s an opportunity to collect data and feedback. Good hiring and recruiting strategies are based on hard data – and blogging can be an excellent channel for collecting data. By monitoring which of your posts are most successful, you can learn more about the types of topics your candidates want to see. And by asking candidates and new hires what they thought of your blog, you can better determine the preferences of your audience and cater to them better in the future.
How to Use a Company Blog to Attract New Talent
So what strategies should you use when utilizing a company blog to attract new talent?
- Update regularly. First, make sure you update your company blog regularly. If a candidate visits your blog and finds that there haven't been any new posts in the last year, they may worry about the future of the business. Aim to publish at least one new post every week, if not more.
- Produce a mix of content. You should also produce a mix of different types of content. Thought leadership content, opinion content, press releases, informative pieces, infographics, and employee spotlights all have a place. This way, you can appeal to different types of people simultaneously. Just make sure there are filtering and search options so people can easily find what kind of content they care about.
- Demonstrate genuine thought leadership. Most people want to work for a business that's setting new standards and achieving new heights in the industry. Accordingly, you benefit from demonstrating genuine thought leadership. Have your most talented, knowledgeable people write posts that prove your company deserves a place in the upper echelons of this business.
- Highlight your company’s values. This is also a great opportunity to highlight your company's values. What internal efforts are you making to make your business better? How is your company giving back and volunteering? Where can people find more information on your business’s efforts in matters like diversity, inclusion, and sustainability?
- Celebrate wins and achievements. Anytime your business accomplishes or achieves something noticeable, celebrate it on the blog. Be sure to include specific information for anyone who wants the details.
- Showcase the culture. You’ll also need to find a way to show off the organizational culture. What is it like to work at this place? How are the employees treated? For example, you can talk about new benefits that you're offering your employees, a pool tournament in the break room that you recently hosted, or special privileges like extra days off that function as rewards for great achievements.
- Put a spotlight on team members. In line with this, it's not a bad idea to use the company blog to put a spotlight on various team members. This is a great way to show off the types of people who work for your company and convince prospective candidates that this place already has lots of exceptional talent. This can also make your existing employees feel great, giving them a chance to talk about themselves and to be recognized.
- Write in a genuine, authentic way. You'll appeal to more candidates if you write your posts in a genuine, authentic way. Skip the HR language and fabricated professionalism; instead, use a friendly, conversational tone to attract more people.
- Promote your best work. When you're especially proud of a piece of content, promote it. Include it in emails, post it on social media, and consider advertising it.
- Get feedback. Collect as much information as possible about the performance of your work. Studying traffic patterns, reading comments, and issuing surveys can help you figure out which of your posts work best.
Blogging for your hiring and recruiting strategy does come with a bit of a learning curve. But even a modest effort to produce better quality, more attractive content for your candidates can work in your favor. The costs are minimal and getting started is easy, so there's no reason not to incorporate it as a component of your overall recruiting efforts.