Eddy’s HR Mavericks Encyclopedia
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Inbound Recruiting
Does recruiting feel impossible for your organization and you can’t figure out why? Maybe it’s time to change from outbound recruiting to inbound recruiting. Read on to learn more!
What Is Inbound Recruiting?
Take almost everything you know about recruiting and throw it out the window! When it comes to inbound recruiting, think heavy on the marketing, less on the sourcing. Spend your time highlighting the positives of your organization and making that information easily accessible for job seekers, and watch them come to you! Turn your recruiting around as you make your company marketable, competitive, and exciting enough to encourage talent to come straight to you.
Inbound vs. Outbound Recruiting
Regular run of the mill outbound recruiting is heavy on sourcing. You spend time researching candidates, going through submitted resumes and hitting social media platforms to seek out outstanding candidates. In other words, outbound recruiting means the company initiates contact, but candidates may be passed on without any official connection. On the contrary, inbound recruiting takes the legwork away from your HR team and puts the power in the hands of your candidates. It gives your candidates an opportunity to be more engaged in the application process and actively seek out your company instead of you sourcing, reviewing resumes, and reaching out to them. This allows them to initiate the contact.
Should Companies Do Inbound Recruiting?
While your recruiting style depends on your company as a whole, let’s look at a few advantages and disadvantages of inbound recruiting so you can make an educated decision for your organization.
Advantages of Inbound Recruiting
- Genuine interest. When candidates reach out to you, you’re bound to have more genuine interest than if you were to reach out to them to sell them on the organization.
- Broader candidate pool. Outbound recruiting often involves hours of looking through resumes and responding, so you may miss out on a great candidate that hasn’t applied. You won’t have the time to source them due to the mountain of non-applicable resumes you have to filter through. Inbound recruiting brings that candidate right to you without all the legwork.
- Shines a light on your brand. Whether good or bad, your employer brand is going to be in the limelight when you focus on inbound recruiting. Use this to your advantage. Take what you’re hearing and seeing from applicants and adjust your brand accordingly to retain and attract top talent.
Disadvantages of Inbound Recruiting
- Time. Inbound recruiting is playing the long game. You’re waiting on that quality candidate to find your organization through marketing and brand awareness and trusting the stars will align. If you need to hire quickly, inbound recruiting can be a major disadvantage.
- Harder to qualify candidates. With consistently fewer candidates to review, you may find it hard to compare because you’re not working with 100 resumes at a time. While not all of those resumes may have been helpful, they at least helped create a benchmark. Without those, a bit more legwork may be required to qualify the ideal candidate.
Tips for Inbound Recruiting
If you’ve decided inbound recruiting is the way to go for your organization, let’s review a few tips to help you on your way.
Tip 1: Establish Your Social Media Presence
In this digital age, most people will be checking out your organization through your social media. Be sure it’s captivating and engaging without being over the top. Show potential candidates the heart of your organization and what sets you apart from the masses. Share company events or in-house parties to show the organizational culture and encourage others to want to be part of it!
Tip 2: Think Like a Candidate
Get into the same frame of mind as your candidate. Evaluate keywords they may search for to find your organization and be sure you have those phrases or keywords throughout your platform. For example, if you’re in the travel industry, use words like “group travel” or “incentive travel” to bring them right to your page as they search. Don’t overthink it, but don’t overlook this tip either.
Tip 3: Keep It Simple
Lastly, keep it simple. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel here and jazz up your home page so much it sends off fireworks when anyone clicks on it. Keep it simple to not overwhelm your candidates. If you ramp up your social media presence, put yourself into the mind of a candidate and keep it simple, you’re well on your way to inbound recruiting.
How to Start Inbound Recruiting
The hardest part of any new journey is that first step. Here are some steps to get you started.
Step 1: Know Who You’re Looking For
Take some time to create your ideal candidate profiles. Without the abundance of unwanted resumes, it may be more difficult to know exactly who you are looking for, but you cannot find the right candidate without this profile. Map out precisely the experience level, professional level and cultural fit you’re looking for as you enter inbound recruiting. It wouldn’t hurt to assign pay scales to the role and stick to it as candidates come to you.
Step 2: Make It Easy
Once the candidate has landed in your organization, don’t make them jump through a myriad of hoops to get to your open positions or application page. Make the application process something you wouldn’t mind going through, but with inbound recruiting, it’s okay to make it a bit more challenging. You’re looking for active candidates, not passive ones. Maybe ask for a short cover letter to explain their interest in your organization or offer a survey that explains what brought them to your company. Make it easy, but ensure it provides you with the necessary information you need.
Step 3: Foster Your Current Candidates
As you enter into inbound recruiting, don't lose sight of your previous candidate pool. While you may not have hired those individuals at the time, hopefully you still have a good relationship with them and can reach out as you build up your inbound recruiting efforts. This could be an email to previous applicants stating what you’re looking for in a candidate right now and encouraging them to fill out a survey to see if they are a good fit. Inbound recruiting takes an extreme amount of patience, but if it’s right for you, it will be worth the wait. So utilize that candidate pool in the meantime.
Topics
Shalie Reich
Shalie has over 4 years of experience working in a variety of HR positions and organizations including: working as an HR department "of one", working with a start-up based in Europe, to working in a fully established robust USA based HR department. Shalie has experience in multiple states and countries with all aspects of the HR spectrum. She has a passion to share her knowledge and experience to benefit the HR profession!
Frequently asked questions
Other Related Terms
Eddy’s HR Mavericks Encyclopedia
Inbound Recruiting
Does recruiting feel impossible for your organization and you can’t figure out why? Maybe it’s time to change from outbound recruiting to inbound recruiting. Read on to learn more!
What Is Inbound Recruiting?
Take almost everything you know about recruiting and throw it out the window! When it comes to inbound recruiting, think heavy on the marketing, less on the sourcing. Spend your time highlighting the positives of your organization and making that information easily accessible for job seekers, and watch them come to you! Turn your recruiting around as you make your company marketable, competitive, and exciting enough to encourage talent to come straight to you.
Inbound vs. Outbound Recruiting
Regular run of the mill outbound recruiting is heavy on sourcing. You spend time researching candidates, going through submitted resumes and hitting social media platforms to seek out outstanding candidates. In other words, outbound recruiting means the company initiates contact, but candidates may be passed on without any official connection. On the contrary, inbound recruiting takes the legwork away from your HR team and puts the power in the hands of your candidates. It gives your candidates an opportunity to be more engaged in the application process and actively seek out your company instead of you sourcing, reviewing resumes, and reaching out to them. This allows them to initiate the contact.
Should Companies Do Inbound Recruiting?
While your recruiting style depends on your company as a whole, let’s look at a few advantages and disadvantages of inbound recruiting so you can make an educated decision for your organization.
Advantages of Inbound Recruiting
- Genuine interest. When candidates reach out to you, you’re bound to have more genuine interest than if you were to reach out to them to sell them on the organization.
- Broader candidate pool. Outbound recruiting often involves hours of looking through resumes and responding, so you may miss out on a great candidate that hasn’t applied. You won’t have the time to source them due to the mountain of non-applicable resumes you have to filter through. Inbound recruiting brings that candidate right to you without all the legwork.
- Shines a light on your brand. Whether good or bad, your employer brand is going to be in the limelight when you focus on inbound recruiting. Use this to your advantage. Take what you’re hearing and seeing from applicants and adjust your brand accordingly to retain and attract top talent.
Disadvantages of Inbound Recruiting
- Time. Inbound recruiting is playing the long game. You’re waiting on that quality candidate to find your organization through marketing and brand awareness and trusting the stars will align. If you need to hire quickly, inbound recruiting can be a major disadvantage.
- Harder to qualify candidates. With consistently fewer candidates to review, you may find it hard to compare because you’re not working with 100 resumes at a time. While not all of those resumes may have been helpful, they at least helped create a benchmark. Without those, a bit more legwork may be required to qualify the ideal candidate.
Tips for Inbound Recruiting
If you’ve decided inbound recruiting is the way to go for your organization, let’s review a few tips to help you on your way.
Tip 1: Establish Your Social Media Presence
In this digital age, most people will be checking out your organization through your social media. Be sure it’s captivating and engaging without being over the top. Show potential candidates the heart of your organization and what sets you apart from the masses. Share company events or in-house parties to show the organizational culture and encourage others to want to be part of it!
Tip 2: Think Like a Candidate
Get into the same frame of mind as your candidate. Evaluate keywords they may search for to find your organization and be sure you have those phrases or keywords throughout your platform. For example, if you’re in the travel industry, use words like “group travel” or “incentive travel” to bring them right to your page as they search. Don’t overthink it, but don’t overlook this tip either.
Tip 3: Keep It Simple
Lastly, keep it simple. Don’t try to reinvent the wheel here and jazz up your home page so much it sends off fireworks when anyone clicks on it. Keep it simple to not overwhelm your candidates. If you ramp up your social media presence, put yourself into the mind of a candidate and keep it simple, you’re well on your way to inbound recruiting.
How to Start Inbound Recruiting
The hardest part of any new journey is that first step. Here are some steps to get you started.
Step 1: Know Who You’re Looking For
Take some time to create your ideal candidate profiles. Without the abundance of unwanted resumes, it may be more difficult to know exactly who you are looking for, but you cannot find the right candidate without this profile. Map out precisely the experience level, professional level and cultural fit you’re looking for as you enter inbound recruiting. It wouldn’t hurt to assign pay scales to the role and stick to it as candidates come to you.
Step 2: Make It Easy
Once the candidate has landed in your organization, don’t make them jump through a myriad of hoops to get to your open positions or application page. Make the application process something you wouldn’t mind going through, but with inbound recruiting, it’s okay to make it a bit more challenging. You’re looking for active candidates, not passive ones. Maybe ask for a short cover letter to explain their interest in your organization or offer a survey that explains what brought them to your company. Make it easy, but ensure it provides you with the necessary information you need.
Step 3: Foster Your Current Candidates
As you enter into inbound recruiting, don't lose sight of your previous candidate pool. While you may not have hired those individuals at the time, hopefully you still have a good relationship with them and can reach out as you build up your inbound recruiting efforts. This could be an email to previous applicants stating what you’re looking for in a candidate right now and encouraging them to fill out a survey to see if they are a good fit. Inbound recruiting takes an extreme amount of patience, but if it’s right for you, it will be worth the wait. So utilize that candidate pool in the meantime.
Topics
Shalie Reich
Shalie has over 4 years of experience working in a variety of HR positions and organizations including: working as an HR department "of one", working with a start-up based in Europe, to working in a fully established robust USA based HR department. Shalie has experience in multiple states and countries with all aspects of the HR spectrum. She has a passion to share her knowledge and experience to benefit the HR profession!
Frequently asked questions
Other Related Terms
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