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4 Reasons HR & Recruitment should be like Marketing, & how to get it right.


Companies that source, hire and motivate the best quality talent will win!

Why? Because attracting and retaining top talent is critical to the success of any organisation. An increase in quality sales, content, and product is only possible with the best talent within your business.

And how do we attract top talent? You think like a Marketing whiz, that’s how!

LiveHire Co-Founder and Growth Director Dr Mike Haywood explains further:

  1. Candidates are consumers
    For many organisations today, the same people applying to open roles with your organisation are the same people your Sales and Marketing team have conversations with. The impressions they have of your brand will be equally impacted by their candidate experience, as well as their customer experience.
  2. Your sources of great candidates are now as equally diverse as your sources of customer leads
    Think social, referrals, conferences, networks, etc. You need a multi-channel approach to sourcing, engaging and delivering a candidate experience that rivals your marketing teams approach to customer acquisition.
  3. The modern recruiter’s approach and capabilities are blending with the modern recruiter
    Sourcing has evolved from advertising, to magnetising. Recruitment from “procurement” to “having conversations”, branding from having an EVP to delivering meaningful experiences.
  4. Rejection of candidates directly impacts acquisition of customers
    Research from the Korn Ferry Institute suggests that more than half of professionals would try to not buy an organisations products or services after a bad candidate experience, so Marketing and Recruitment need to be working together to eliminate rejection and know when there is overlap between candidates and customers.

How do we attract top talent into our company? The same way that we attract sales!

You need to position your company as one that’s both an attractive option and, also, the right option.

It is often hard for an organisation to prioritise attracting talent when chasing sales seems the most immediate driver of performance. Marketing is focused on sourcing new sales opportunities and, hence, recruitment needs to focus on sourcing the right candidate prospects.

So, how do we make HR more like Marketing?


Create out-of-this-world Employer Branding

When we hear the term Branding, our thoughts immediately move towards the Marketing department. Branding generally refers to the visual and verbal identity of a company, which is aligned with the vision and mission of the organisation. The Brand usually presents the point of difference of an organisation, positioning your place in the market. The aim of Branding is to attract people to your product or organisation, by showing off your personality and forming an out-of-this-world reputation.

Sound familiar?

Well, that’s because it is. If you want to attract the best talent, you’ve got to show them the vision, culture and values of your organisation, and it’s got to resonate with them! You’ve got to find talent who really want to work with for your organisation, not just someone who wants a job.

Check out our employer branding playbook here.

The #1 golden rule: You’ve got to deliver on what you promise.

If you advertised a camera phone, you’d expect your phone to be able to take photos, right?

That’s a golden rule in Marketing; you’ve got to deliver on what you promise. This contributes to a positive company reputation, as they begin to trust your product or the services you provide, they, in turn, trust your company.

The same rules apply for the work environment that you are promoting. If you advertise flexible working opportunities and the chance to win luxury work bonus trips to Bali each year, you better deliver! Don’t advertise something that isn’t achievable, even if you want to attract the top of the top Talent. This will sour your relationship and decrease your productivity.

You’ve gotta keep up with change!

In the same way that market expectations change, so do the expectations of employees.

Nowadays, we can’t even deal with the idea of headphones having cords! Imagine what we would have thought about that 20 years ago?

Employee expectations have also developed, drastically. Employees expect flexibility and diversity, for example.

You have to be aware of evolving expectations.

So, go on. It’s time to stop treating HR and Marketing as two entirely different divisions in your business. It’s time to attract top Talent and embrace all things Marketing! 


If you’re interested in learning more about LiveHire, check out our resource centre  or register for a demo here.


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