Standing out in the recruitment industry can be very difficult, but I’ve compiled my top 10 recruitment agency tips to help give you some fresh ideas.

Keep your online vacancies up to date

Many recruitment agencies don’t update their positions regularly enough on their websites which can be very frustrating for candidates when they discover that it’s already at the interview stage or been filled. One disgruntled applicant could tell 10 or 20 of their friends or even leave a damaging comment on an online forum so it’s wise to keep your vacancies up to date at all times.

Offer your clients and candidates something different

Technology is all around us but many recruitment agencies still rely solely on emailing CVs to their clients when they could be using video to let the client see the candidate close up, the way they act and how they speak etc.

Use email marketing to promote yourself and your candidates

Rather than making dozens of cold calls every day you could try using it in conjunction with email marketing to generate business. If a recruiter has already had a large number of cold calls from agencies, taking a slightly different approach could work for you.

You could also use email marketing to promote exceptional candidates and email their details to prospective employers either for current or future vacancies.

Post your vacancies on Twitter

Twitter can help you cast the net wider when it comes to recruiting for specific vacancies. One of your followers may have 100 or more followers of their own and you never know who could end up seeing your vacancy tweets.

Use your imagination to win clients

If all the other recruitment agencies in your local area are employing the same tactics to try and win clients then why not make your company stand out by doing something else?

A different approach will be like a breath of fresh air to companies looking to recruit, for example you could send pizzas round to their offices one lunchtime with your company name and contact details printed on the inside of the box.

Become a one-stop resource for candidates

Having lots of relevant, fresh and interesting content on your website for job seekers to refer to will help your website get more traffic, repeat visits and possibly incoming links.

If you don’t have time or the skills to write the articles yourself, hire a professional copywriter to research the topics and write the articles for you.

Target long-tail keywords through pay per click advertising

If you’re in a city with lots of competition amongst recruitment agencies you may find that pay per click advertising costs are very high for the main keywords and phrases you want to target.

By targeting long-tail keywords (those made up of longer string of words) you could save yourself a lot of money and tap into an area that’s not already being exploited by other local recruitment agencies. For example rather than bidding on “London jobs” you could bid on “office jobs in North London” or another suitable term with a low cost per click.

Don’t focus too much on SEO

If you’re a small recruitment company with a lot of bigger rivals, don’t get involved in an SEO war and become obsessed with being number 1 in Google.

Instead you should focus on how you got your existing clients and how you can use similar methods to win future business.

Use technology to communicate with candidates

Rather than not responding to unsuccessful candidates or wasting time emailing or calling them all personally, you could use SMS messages or emails to inform them when a vacancy has been filled or when they haven’t been selected for interview.

Send clients relevant online news articles

When you want to impress a new client you’ve recently taken on and try to win more business from them you could set up news alerts on your PC for specific industry related phrases and then send any relevant articles  to your client to let them see you’re on the ball and keeping up to date with their industry.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these tips. Please feel free to suggest any of your own too.

Image Credit: Fakhar

This entry was posted on Friday, July 29th, 2011 at 8:00 am and is filed under Industry Specific Tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.