3 Content Marketing Tips for Staffing Firms that Attract Passive Candidates

As 60% of the talent pool, passive job seekers are a population you cannot ignore. Yet the time and effort required to convert passive candidates naturally makes them more difficult prospects than active job seekers. To efficiently win over these increasingly in-demand candidates, your recruiters need to overcome their objections, provide clear value, and build their own credibility so that the relationship grows into a mutually beneficial connection.

Content marketing is one way to get your brand and message out to passive candidates without being obnoxious and in their face. In fact, here are three ways that content marketing for staffing firms can increase your success with passive candidates.

1.      Update Your Website

Your website is your digital stand-in. The impression it makes on candidates will encourage or dissuade further interactions. Sound a little over-exaggerated?  At least 53% of mobile users say that a frustrating experience on a website hurts their opinion of the overall brand. Your credibility is clearly on the line if a website is ugly or unfriendly to users.

In fact, if it appears outdated – which studies find is more likely to happen if your current website design is 2.5 years old or more – passive candidates can brush you off before they even get to know the quality of your service. That’s why companies that thrive in an era of passive candidates are those that are willing to redesign their staffing website before too much of their credibility gets defaced.

2.      Create Original Content

Not every candidate touch point can or should be a conversation with one of your recruiters. For active candidates, job boards have been an effective way to catch their attention, establish your credibility, and funnel prospects back to your website. Since passive candidates mostly ignore job boards, staffing firms need to rely upon a different type of funnel to bring prospects to their doorstep. Original content is one of the strongest ways to do so.

Consider the difference between original and curated content. When you post curated content (blogs gathered from outside sources), you borrow your credibility and authority, but when you post original content, you’re highlighting your own expert status. Staffing firms that demonstrate expertise on topics that matter to passive candidate build trust for their brand and the advice they give.

Plus, your original content can increase conversions. Blogs, eBooks, and white papers draw prospects to your website. If that content is optimized, you can provide pathways that expand upon passive candidates’ curiosity or direct them to pages with higher conversion rates.

3.      Get Seen by Passive Candidates

A key element of content marketing for staffing firms is creating visibility. If you develop valuable content without a way to reach a wider audience, you’d be just as likely to reach passive candidates by releasing a message in a bottle. Effective content strategies target prospects in ways that maximize your efforts and lower the difficulty of converting passive candidates.

Social media marketing is the go-to method. At least 79% of job seekers use social media in their search. Though passive candidates aren’t looking for jobs, they are looking for tips, trends, and advice on how to improve their technical skills and careers. Even showing off your culture can attract passive candidates’ interest, bringing them into the outer edges of the funnel.

Keep in mind that there are different strategies for effectively posting on social media. Each platform has its own optimum time and post type to garner the most clicks. Additionally, sponsoring posts can boost brand awareness with your desired audience and funnel more passive candidates to your website.

The Results of Content Marketing for Staffing Firms

As with any strategy, content marketing’s effectiveness depends on its ROI with passive candidates. In general, content marketing costs 62% less than outbound marketing and generates three times the leads. However, it’s important to customize metrics in ways that reflect your goals and priorities. That way, content marketing can be focused on obstacles that you need to overcome and your marketing spend can be used to full efficiency to bring more passive candidates to your recruiters.

Want to learn more about content marketing strategies and how they can help attract the candidates you need? Check out the Definitive Recruitment Marketing Guide for Staffing Firms to get proven insights.