Recruiting and talent acquisition have grown beyond the bounds of identifying and evaluating people to fill empty roles. There’s an art to it—or a science, depending on who you are—that’s making us think that a better approach is recruitment marketing.

Recruitment marketing is every way your org captures the attention of and attracts the best talent. It persuades “the right candidates to apply for your organization over another.” Stories persuade those right candidates to convert to permanent, committed team members.

Recruitment marketing in action

When we interviewed Sarah Boutin, Senior Manager of Marketing Communications at Salesforce she told us about some of the recruitment marketing methods they use:

“We respond to any questions our candidates have. We try to draw them into our culture and really give them a transparent picture of what it’s like to work here. We have a great example of that in an article in Inc. Magazine. The reporter from Inc. went undercover on Instagram as a potential candidate and messaged five different companies on a “top 100 companies to work for” list asking for tips on how to get a job and how to stand out in the application process. And of the five, our Salesforce Jobs account was the only one to respond and we gave that reporter (who of course we thought was a candidate) some great actionable tips on how to stand out, how to learn more about our culture, the best ways to apply, and how to get noticed.”

Beyond Instagram

While Instagram may not be the right channel for every candidate, it’s one of many places organizations can share stories. Take Change.org as another example. On their Careers page, they have a video that tells the story of Sarah, a young woman who took on Gatorade, garnering more than 200,000 signatures petitioning the beverage company to remove chemicals from its drinks (and it worked!). The video also shows Sarah meeting and thanking Change.org staff. Later in the video, team members recount stories of other positive changes they’ve enacted for others.

Whether it’s through Instagram or a careers page or something else, recruitment marketing is taking off. Finding content you can use to market to candidates can be difficult. At Stories Incorporated, we’ve got the skills and tools to make it easy.