Recruitment Marketing Strategies | Sara Elkins

David McBee: Hello and welcome to Simpli.fi TV, the web series and podcast for agencies, brands, marketers, and media buyers. I'm David McBee. Our guest today is Sara Elkins, Vice President of Digital for Shaker Recruitment Marketing. Sara is an HR technology leader with a proven track record of delivering consultive scalable talent acquisition strategies in union with developing employment brand programs to maximize business performance. She builds high performing teams that embrace cutting edge trends, increase revenue, and create solutions for customers. Sara has over 15 years of experience in consultative selling to large enterprise accounts and building relationships, and she has a brilliant sense of humor. Sara, welcome to Simpli.fi TV. Sara Elkins: Thanks, David, really appreciate being here. I'm really excited to talk with you today. David McBee: Did I put you on the spot by saying you have a brilliant sense of humor? Sara Elkins: No, not at all. This is where I insert in a funny joke. So let's see, funny joke. Two fish were in a tank. The one looks at the other one and says, "Hey, how do you drive this thing?" This is where you need drums. David McBee: Oh yeah, the wrong kind of tank. That's good. I love that. I'll be telling that one later. Thank you for that. All right, so you've obviously established that you have this great sense of humor. Let's see if you can continue that for 10 minutes while we talk about recruitment marketing, which might be a little bit challenging. So let me just ask you the first question, which is, what do you feel are the hallmarks of a great recruitment marketing program? Sara Elkins: Yeah, that's a great question and I think it's quite a mouthful. I think when we look at recruitment marketing, fundamentally you have to start at your brand. What is your brand? What are some of the key messages of your brand. Once a client has that established and then they move on to how to market that brand, or in our specific case with recruitment marketing, how do I attract the candidates that I want to attract that's going to go well with my culture, my company, my vision, and stay for a really, really long time. So starting with brand and then the content, and then the other piece of it is really just how do we attract, where do we put that message to get those eyeballs, to get those pieces, those people in order to have them apply and come into the company. So those are kind of the key pieces and then we can get in deep in terms of the tactics or if you have other questions. David McBee: Well, I just want to say, I didn't really think about it so much as the first element being branding, right? You're basically doing the same thing you would do with customers, only it's more about your company and why it's so valuable. That's an element I hadn't really thought of. Sara Elkins: Yeah, and absolutely, and I mean, one of the things because recruitment marketing is again marketing that employment brand out to a specific audience, those candidates to get them to come and apply, but really looking at the consumer. I often look at the consumer space. Often they may have a little bit more money in terms of budgets, but what are they doing and how are they attracting? Because it really is all about a job buying experience as opposed to consumer where I'm buying a thing or a shoe or a shirt or something like that. They're buying a job. So how are we selling that job and communicating that job to the right audience? David McBee: Can you share any examples of some digital recruitment strategies that you've implemented successfully? Sara Elkins: Yeah, absolutely. And again, fundamentally it starts with that brand piece. I personally oversee the digital aspect of it. So once that brand is developed and that content strategy, we come to the table and determine what are the right tactics or where are the right places that we want to show this advertisement. So this could be anything from starting with basic stuff in terms of search, how are you showing up on Google? How are you showing up on Bing? It's part of your social strategy with the different platforms of Facebook and Insta and Snap and now TikTok. How are employer brands showing up there? What is the messaging? What is the content? But then it all comes back to where are we sending those people, where are we sending those eyeballs on that career website? So some of the things we've done, we've built career websites from the ground up. We've helped with those marketing plans in terms of should this company based on who they're attracting, is it healthcare, is it manufacturing, is it retail? Should they be on TikTok? Should they be on Facebook? Should they be on Insta? Where should they... Should they be on Reddit? Should they be on X? Those are some of the big things. And then helping them to create that messaging, that creative so that when candidates look, they have some sort of connection and they understand what that culture is and what the job is and then go through their workflow. David McBee: You listed a lot of social media platforms and obviously that's a great place to recruit. What role does programmatic play in your recruitment strategies? Sara Elkins: Programmatic plays a huge role. I mean, back in the day it was all about contracts and now doing things programmatically gives clients the ability to move quickly and be pretty fluid with their budget. So you're constantly giving your budget to whatever's performing. So based on whatever their KPIs are, if it's impressions or if it's building an audience or if it's a lower cost per click or a cost per hire, trying to pull all of that together in order to have them achieve whatever success that they're looking for. David McBee: I know that a lot of people really lean on programmatic because of the targeting, and yet in recruitment you have some... You can't necessarily target based on age or household income, right? So what are some of the targeting aspects that you use? Sara Elkins: Sure. I mean, that's a really great question and part of it comes down to building out those personas. So if you have a healthcare group and they're looking for nurses, what are the fundamental pieces that makes a great nurse in that environment? Because every hospital's going to be different, every healthcare system's going to be different, just like being an engineer. So we look at those first and then we try to determine based on where the audience is, based on data, what we know from market research, what we know from the industry, and then go ahead and target. But I think your keyword that you used is targeting. Targeting is the big flashing sign rather than just spamming a bunch of information and/or content out there that then ends up in that word of the sea of sameness. All nursing advertisement looks the same, all engineering looks the same, all manufacturing. What can we do from that persona and that key messaging to really attract the right audience? It, again, ties really nicely back into the consumer. Why do we as consumer buy certain things? Why do we do it? Part of it's we like it. Maybe it's the messaging. Part of it's the creative and pulling all that together. David McBee: All right, so how do you stay up to date with the latest trends and technologies in digital recruitment and do you have an example of a recent innovation that has impacted your strategies? Sara Elkins: Right. That's a really great question. And I think in our industry it moves lightning fast. Every day there's something new and next. So one of the things that I do, I network tremendously. I've been in the business for a very, very long time, so that's one of the things. I also have a pretty snazzy commute going into the office. That's my time where I listen to all the podcasts. So I'll pick things that are in our industry to try to keep up to date on what's going on, what is the latest and greatest, what is the new and next. But then I do also listen to a lot of marketing, just consumer marketing because I think consumer marketing leads the way and then recruitment marketing follows afterwards to try to keep up to speed on that. David McBee: That's a perfect segue into my last question, which is, what is your favorite podcast or is there a book that has been instrumental in your success? Sara Elkins: So I was thinking about this. I have a book, it is an old book. It's called Flawless Consulting, and it's by Peter Block. And I mean, this has been out for years, but fundamentally it just goes through the basics of consulting, how to consult, how to deal with resistance. And I think that's something that I go back to. I mean, it was a book that I used back in my master's program and I still usually have it on my desk and I have things highlighted in it. But it's just, I think it's really helpful with coaching and talking to such a wide array of clients. David McBee: I think we all have a favorite book from back in our 20s that we lean into a lot. Mine is How to Win Friends and Influence People, which is so old. It makes me sound like such an old man. I know. Sara Elkins: I was thinking through that when I was going to name that book and people are going to be like, "That was out like 20 years ago." David McBee: Hey, Shakespeare was hundreds of years ago. And people still love it, so. Sara Elkins: Very true. Do you have something from that book that you feel like you use fairly often? David McBee: Oh, in How to Win Friends and Influence people? Sara Elkins: Yes. David McBee: Absolutely. Yeah, I think it's a person's name is the sweetest sound that they will ever hear. People love to hear their name and so I try very hard to learn people's names when I meet them. I know a lot of people say, "I'm not good at that," but I always try very hard to memorize names as quickly as I can and then use them. Sara Elkins: That's a great one. David McBee: Thanks for asking. All right, Sara, so what is the best way for viewers to learn more about you? Sara Elkins: Yeah, absolutely. The easiest way to get ahold of me is on LinkedIn, so saraelkins@linkedin.com would be perfect. And connect with me, ask me questions. I'm always willing to listen and learn more because of what's going on in our space. David McBee: Well, this was a great interview. Thank you so much for being my guest on Simpli.fi TV. Sara Elkins: Thank you so much. I really appreciate your time. David McBee: And thank you guys for watching. Simpli.fi TV is sponsored by Simpli.fi, helping you to maximize relevance and multiply results with our industry leading media buying and workflow solutions. For more information, visit simpli.fi. Thanks for joining us today. I'm David McBee, be awesome and we'll see you next time.