Messaging - What HR Wants to Hear from Vendors

The following is an excerpt from my latest ebook entitled the Essential Marketing Guide for HR Tech Vendors and Startups.

Recruiters and HR people are arguably the busiest people at any company today. They are managing multiple reqs or putting out fire after fire while trying to please management.

I think the four messages that resonate most with them in general are;

• Save me time

• Save me money

• Make my job easier

• Get me quality applicants

Be sure your messaging has elements of some or all of these. Integration with other technologies like an applicant tracking systems is also a key feature request from HR. If your product doesn’t play nice, that’s a hurdle you need to be aware of. Expect questions about possible integrations when demo’ing your tool.

NOTE: Josh Bersin, the HR Tech analyst calls it “integrated talent management”.

When it comes to HR software there is a big push from employers to have  integrated suites that do everything. We are seeing a big push from vendors who offer well rounded set of features.

Take Snagajob for instance, the job board company just bought PeopleMatter a HR system for managing hourly workers. For years, CareerBuilder was just a job board. But even they have broadened their offerings. Now they serve employers needs from soup to nuts.

Because of this if your product does not integrate well into these new and powerful HR systems your product may struggle to gain acceptance until you do.

Tout your numbers if you have them. I was speaking to an exec at an entry level job site recently who asked what he should lead with as far as wording on his marketing and landing pages. “What are your numbers?”, I asked. “2.5 million profiles of college students and recent grads”, he replied. “Lead with that”, I said. Those are the kinds of things recruiters like to hear.

New Ebook! The Essential HR Tech Marketing Guide

I've just put the finishing touches on my first ebook for HR Tech vendors and startups. In it I teach and inform you on how to market your product to HR professionals and recruiters. With more than 40 pages on content that cover everything from messaging to social media it's a must have for any startup or veteran marketer.

Buy it here.

Here's whats in it...

1. Introduction
2. Messaging - What HR Wants to Hear from Vendors
3. When to Approach - Best times of day/week to make your pitch
4. Tools, Tactics & Channels
5. Content Marketing - what to create and how to do it
6. Social Media - how to leverage these channels for free traffic and brand awareness
7. Guest posting - my list of favorites sites to get published in
8. Conferences - the blisg list of events to attend throughout the year
9. Prospecting - tips for email/phone
10. Webinars - best practices
11. Advertising - where to advertise your message including my list of industry related sites
12. Your Website - tips to maximize your own site
13. Influencers - my list of the best industry pros to engage if you want help marketing your product

A Tale of Two Linkedin Visual Job Ads

Since taking over the strategy and execution for ACLcareers.com I have been on a mission to make their social recruiting more visual than ever before. I launched channels on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram and took over a dormant Linkedin company page with around 5,600 followers. 

I began sharing 1-2 images per day on Linkedin and in the 6 weeks of doing that we've gained 350+ new followers. Comments, likes, shares and engagement has skyrocketed.

My strategy has been to show off life at the company, welcome new employees, tout the occaisional news byte and promote our priority job openings in a visual format. I want the page to drive brand awareness and of course hires.

I've been posting real images and also visual job ads that I make myself. After posting a few dozen images I began to notice which ones got more impressions, likes and comments. The results surprised me a bit.

First lets set our averages so you get a better idea of how many impressions you can expect. Our posts average around 2,800 impressions each. Thats with a follower count of almost 6,000 people. 

As I started to look at which images performed better, two stood out.

The first was just a simple image with our careers tagline, logo and url.

As you can see it almost doubled the number of impressions of the average image. It also pulled in more Likes and comments than normal. And LIKES are important because they will show up in the newsfeed of the people who liked it, thus increasing the number of impressions, thus increasing our brand awareness. 

Then I decided to alter the same image to try and make it more interesting. I added one of our ship icons and created a bigger image with more impact.

Wow! I almost tripled the number of impressions. Engagement went from 1.79% to 2.06%. Comments almost doubled and the number of Likes took off. As of this blog post going live, that image has received 82 Likes and is getting 2-4 new ones each day.

I wasn't expecting an image this simple to get that kind of traction. But it seems that its clean, sparse design, limited color scheme and overall focus were the reasons why. So my advice is to simplify your recruitment marketing images. Simpler is better. Focus your message for the viewer.

They say the best billboards you see on the highway should have no more than 7 words on it to have the best readability. I think the same can be said for images on social media. Keep your message succint, have great design elements and it will be seen by more people.