How Recruiters Can Build Trust Through Content Marketing

March 29, 2019

As I mentioned in part one, building trust is your number one job; everything else is noise. You can be the smartest person in the world or the world’s greatest athlete, but if you don’t have trust, you don’t have anything.

It’s no different when it comes to marketing. Part of marketing’s role is to make noise and attract people’s attention. But that’s where most people’s understanding of marketing ends. This blog is about the other side of marketing, the side that builds goodwill and trust with your customers. It’s about marketing that will enable you to build long-term enduring relationships with your customers.

How To Win Friends and Influence People (with Content)

I remember the first time I read Dale Carnegie’s “How to Win Friends and Influence People,” it was such an eye-opening experience for me. I was in the middle of my undergrad degree in business and decided to work on my people skills. It wasn’t long before I found myself volunteering, teaching classes, and dedicating myself to a life of servitude.

In many ways, the best way to understand content marketing is to understand the concepts of Dale Carnegie’s book. Even though it was first published in 1936, its message is as relevant as ever. What Carnegie understood about business wasn’t a secret recipe that you can implement in 5 easy steps–he didn’t have a checklist for building lasting relationships, he simply understood that business was about relationships, and relationships were about trust.

As I said in part one of this feature, establishing trust is arguably the most important objective of any business. One of the most cost-effective and scalable ways to establish trust with your audience is to create quality content. Not only does quality content help businesses establish trust through branding, but it also helps with positioning, thought leadership, and converting leads into sales.

Content Influences People and Their Purchasing Decisions

According to a recent survey, 47% of buyers viewed 3-5 pieces of content before engaging with a sales rep. (Demand Gen Report, 2016) This means that businesses who aren’t providing the right content are losing out on half of their sales. Due to the ubiquity of the internet, buyers are more informed than ever, and the buyer’s journey has completely transformed—which means that businesses are investing more than ever in creating quality content.

Winning friends and influencing people is all about trust, and by creating content for every stage of the buyer‘s journey, businesses can establish trust, build credibility, and forge lasting partnerships with their customers. Using the methods we’ve covered in both parts of this blog, you can not only build trust with your customers but also spur them into action with your content.

Parqa provides full-ranging content marketing services that allow you to communicate your brand and expertise without adding unreasonable responsibility to your staff. If you want to discuss how you can pivot your marketing efforts to maintain and grow within your industry, reach out to Parqa today!

5 Benefits to Using AI in the Recruiting Industry

December 13, 2018

One of the biggest ongoing challenges a recruiter faces is seeking out qualified talent day after day. Luckily, with the rise in technology, attracting top talent just got even easier. How? The answer is artificial intelligence. AI is rapidly becoming more commonly used by recruiting firms, as it makes their job more efficient and less stressful.

So, what are the benefits of using AI in the Recruiting Industry? Continue reading to find out.

Time Saver

Time management is crucial in the life of a recruiter. The last thing a recruiter needs is to spend extra time on tedious tasks such as scheduling interviews, screening applicants, and ensuring the needs of your team members are met. Fortunately, AI reduces the time spent during the hiring process.

It takes a great deal of time to go through hundreds of job applications. Using automated assistants or chatbots can help the application process move a lot faster and reduce the time it takes to identify top candidates.

In addition, it can be exhausting to post a new job posting repeatedly. Thankfully, AI is aiming to incorporate a virtual assistant as the first line of contact during the application process to build a trail of interaction and information with the applicant. That way a recruiter doesn’t have to start from scratch every time and lose valuable time.

Highest Quality Talent

There’s no question that using AI can help attract the highest quality candidates. According to a survey, nearly 63% of HR professionals say AI has changed the way recruiting is done within their organization. AI formulates concise and accurate job descriptions to represent exactly what you’re seeking in applicants.

Using automated processes to source candidates can impact the recruiter’s efforts by scouring the Internet for talented candidates, while the recruiter focuses in on other important tasks.

Increased Diversity

Implementing AI into your application screening process will help eliminate any potential bias you may have. Ultimately, boosting the diversity of your talent pool. Having a diverse workplace can improve the overall growth of your organization.

Improved Candidate Experience

Surprisingly, AI can give your candidates a better experience during the hiring process. How is this possible with minimal human interaction? AI tools are designed to quickly provide answers and responses to candidates to maintain a business relationship.

AI keeps candidates in the loop throughout the entire hiring process. Chatbots have been successful in creating positive experiences for candidates by continuously providing information and answers to maintain open communication so they never feel they’re being ignored.

AI doesn’t only improve candidates’ experience either. It improves your team’s experience internally as well, boosting the growth of your organization.

Cost-Effective

As you know, the process of hiring a new employee is costly. And you’re probably thinking that implementing AI will be even more expensive. Even though AI comes with additional costs, it will positively impact your ROI in the long run. Hiring the most qualified talent will reduce turnover and save money on the expenses surrounding adding new talent.

In the end, AI is advancing several industries worldwide, including the recruiting industry. If you haven’t incorporated AI into your business practices yet, I highly recommend doing so, as there are several benefits.

How Recruiting Firms Can Write Meaningful Thought Leadership Blogs

October 17, 2018

Most recruiting firms know it’s essential to create thought leadership content. It builds credibility, and it’s excellent for getting found online (hello SEO)! Have you been blogging for a while and it doesn’t seem to be working? Or maybe you don’t currently blog, but when you start, you want to make sure you’re doing it the right way?

Well, you’re in luck! We have an easy way to make sure you’re bogging effectively. Five steps. Read on.

Step 1: Define Your Target Audience

Simply stated, decide who you want to talk to. Better yet, who do you want to attract and engage? Do you want to attract more candidates? Or (most often) clients?

Let’s say you want to attract more clients.

Step 2: Narrow Down to a Specific “Buyer Persona”

Who do you want to get in front of? Is it HR Leaders in the healthcare industry who hire roles X, Y, Z? What size of company do they typically work for? What headaches do they have to deal with at work? What trends are they interested in staying on top of related to their job? What makes them tick?

Let’s say your buyer persona is HR Manager Mary. She is 42 years old and has been in her role for nearly 20 years. She works for a smaller organization that is rapidly growing, but she is the only person in HR, and she has to manage all of the hiring herself. Her most significant pain point is that, while she is capable of hiring talent for her company, she just doesn’t have time. She wishes she could keep up on trends in her space (e.g., healthcare) and wants to provide the best talent to her growing organization. And she’s a family person who values time management so she can spend time with her husband and children in the evenings after work without having to be glued to her laptop.

Step 3: Find Keywords Relevant to Your Buyer Persona’s Pain Points and Industry

This may be the most challenging step – but you’re just a few minutes away from getting started. Create a list of topics and phrases that matter most to your buyer persona – try to integrate their specific industry (the industry you specialize in, ideally). For example, you may use keywords such as “healthcare industry hiring trends” or “healthcare recruiters Minneapolis” or “recruiting time management.”

It’s helpful to work with a digital marketing agency who specializes in SEO for recruiting firms to define keywords of focus that you know your potential client will be interested in, and also confirm that there is search volume for those keywords (e.g., do people search for a specific keyword phrase 200 times/month or 20,000 times/month).

Step 4: Create a Blog Content Calendar

This sounds complicated, but it’s as simple as deciding what topics you’re going to write about, and when. When life gets busy between managing searches, working with your team, and trying to keep everything running smoothly, writing a thought leadership blog is usually the last thing on your mind. By having a content calendar with deadlines and pre-determined titles, keywords, and a buyer persona, you can sit down and write. (Yes, we can help with that.)

I know it’s easier said than done, but with benefits ranging from building credibility and presence online to driving Google search results, writing thought leadership blogs is one of the critical business focuses that will help you win searches and attract new potential clients.

Step 5: Share, Share, Share

Once you write a blog on a topic that matters to your potential client, get the word out there! Post the blog to your company’s LinkedIn page. Share it from your LinkedIn Publisher. Tell your recruiters and leaders to share it in a LinkedIn post. The more reach, the better!

If you work with a team of recruiters, and your company specializes in a specific industry niche, your co-workers also have a relevant network on LinkedIn who would like to see your thought leadership content! It builds your brand, your company’s brand, and your fellow recruiters’ brands. Win, win, win!

Now that you’ve got the recipe for writing relevant thought leadership blogs get started! It will take you:

10 seconds to define your target audience, because you know it (clients vs. candidates)
3 minutes to write down a specific buyer persona (remember HR Manager Mary)
3 minutes to brainstorm keywords relevant to their pain points and how you can help
3 minutes to assign due dates for yourself (do the 10th of every month to start)
(Once you write your blog) 5-10 minutes to share it to your LinkedIn Publisher, share to your company page, and email your recruiting team to share as a LinkedIn post

It’s not something you can do with your eyes closed, but it IS something you can get ready for if you spend less than 10 minutes preparing. Not everyone can master the art of blogging. Not everyone blogs for the right audience. And not everyone blogs with meaningful, keyword-focused content. Then again, not every recruiting firm is excellent at what they do. Not every recruiting firm picks a niche and dives in, making sure they only hire the best and provide the best service. But if you are among the best in your space, then the next step is to build your brand online and become known as a thought leader in your industry. If you’ve made it here, you’re committed to improving your company – and that makes you different. Now, go spend 10 minutes preparing!

Need help getting blogging? Let’s talk!

Webinar On-Demand: Why Recruiting Firms Should Hire a Digital Marketing Agency that Specializes in the Recruiting Industry ➢

At Parqa Marketing, we specialize in creating and executing content marketing strategies for recruiters. Learn more about our approach to content marketing and contact us today if you’d like to discover how we can transform your recruiting firm’s digital marketing efforts.

Thought Leadership