The biggest challenges in recruitment marketing (and what to do about them)

We've all heard "content is king" more times than we can count. And most of us have listened, dutifully producing blog after blog, post after post.

But when everyone is producing content, and AI can generate text in seconds, how do you actually stand out?

Content still matters. There's just a lot more of it now. Which means yours has to be better. Not longer, not more frequent. Better.

So what does "better" look like?

• Good writing is clear, concise, easy and enjoyable to read.
• Good writing shows a spark of personality and draws you in.
• Good writing answers a question for your audience. It solves a problem for them. I mean, why else would they read it?

That last point is where it starts. Before you write anything, you need to know what your audience is struggling with.

For my audience (you), recruitment marketers, the biggest challenges in are often:

1. Generating traffic and leads
2. Hiring marketing talent
3. Marketing plan pivots

So, let’s look at ways to solve each of these and then consider what challenges your audience might be dealing with.

Getting found: traffic, SEO and the changing search landscape

Your content can't do its job if nobody sees it. Which brings us to SEO.

I know. She just said we're writing for people, not search engines. And we are. But SEO isn't about stuffing keywords into a paragraph anymore. It hasn't been for years. What SEO does is inform your research, sharpen your editing, and make sure your metadata is working for you.

The search landscape has shifted significantly. AI-generated answers now appear directly in search results, which means your content needs to offer something those summaries can't: depth, specificity, and a perspective that comes from real experience. Google's guidance around E-E-A-T (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, Trustworthiness) reflects this. Content written by someone who actually knows what they're talking about will outperform generic advice, however well optimised it is.

Here's what to focus on:

• Your title tag (the version displayed in search results, which can be different from your page title) should be the right length and include your target phrase.
• Check how competitive that phrase is and make sure your content goes deep enough to compete.
• Use images and video with descriptive alt tags. Search engines still can't interpret visual content without them.
• Write a meta description that gives people a reason to click through.
• Develop content that answers specific queries your audience is searching for.

For a more detailed walkthrough, take a look at our recruitment blogging checklist and our post on SEO tips for recruitment firms.

Turning traffic into leads

Getting people to your website is only half the job. The other half is converting them.

Lead generation comes down get them to pick up the phone, or or to give you their details so you can contact them.

What makes someone pick up the phone?  Content, or information if you will, that is so compelling that they realise they need your expertise. Not content that says "we're experts" but content that proves it, by giving them something they couldn't have worked out on their own.

And what makes someone hand over their email? Access to something valuable enough to justify the exchange. Such as:

• A newsletter that consistently delivers useful insight.

• A guide that helps them solve a specific problem.

• A salary calculator or skills assessment tool they can use straight away.

What those problems and questions look like will depend on the sectors you recruit in. But the principle is the same: sharing your expertise is what drives leads.

A note on measuring ROI

You want to track website visitors and rankings to know your SEO is working, but those aren't the numbers your MD cares about. The metrics that matter are the number of leads your marketing brings in (that's your marketing ROI) and the number of those leads that convert into business (that's the combined ROI from marketing and sales, which will typically involve multiple touchpoints).

Whether a lead is a client or a candidate depends on your goals, but each has a financial value attached: the value of the client contract or the individual placement fee.

If you have a CRM system, you can track inbound website leads using a dedicated field (preferable) or through notes (slower, but better than nothing). Tracking phone leads is harder and relies on your consultants asking where callers found you, but it's worth the effort. If you can follow a lead from first touch through to conversion, you have a true picture of your return on investment.

How do you get around your own hiring challenges?

Finding good marketers is hard. So, if hiring is proving difficult, here are two routes are worth considering:

Upskilling. You may have junior team members with potential, or people elsewhere in the business who'd be strong marketers with the right training. A mentor, whether internal or external, can accelerate their development significantly: someone to check in with, discuss ideas, suggest areas for improvement and steer them in the right direction. We offer a mentoring service if that's something you'd like to explore.

Speaking of training, this can come in many forms, from the more traditional courses, to workshops and webinars. 

While they are not specific to the recruitment industry (we've made a number of free webinars specifically for recruitment marketers), there are lots of free and paid for marketing and social media training sessions and certifications – here is a list of some resources we think your marketing team will find useful to boost their digital marketing skills: 

• HubSpot Academy 
• Cambridge Marketing College 
• The Chartered Institute of Marketing
• LinkedIn Online Marketing Tutorials 
• SEMRush Digital Marketing Courses
• Google Skillshop
• Canva Graphic Design Basics
• Wordstream PPC University
• Sendinblue Academy Email Marketing Course
• Yoast Online SEO Training
• Google Digital Garage
• Meta Blueprint Social Media Marketing Professional Certificate

We also run multiple training workshops on behalf of clients (both in person and virtually) – these are designed to be interactive with exercises to suit the goals of each business and those being trained. Please get in touch if this is something you might be interested in.

Outsourcing. If you can't find the right person to hire, or your team is stretched, an agency can fill the gap. A decent blog post takes most marketers three to four hours to produce. Depending on how competitive your sectors are, you may need fresh content weekly. Your consultants don't have the time (and possibly not the skills) to write it themselves. And editing AI-generated content to the point where it reads well and sounds human takes nearly as long as writing from scratch.

But if a consultant can spare ten minutes for a quick conversation, an agency can turn that into a finished piece.

The cost question always comes up. Content marketing that's done well pays for itself. Regular, search-optimised blog content can significantly increase your web traffic, which in turn delivers more candidate applications and client enquiries, which leads to placements. The revenue from those placements will far exceed the cost of producing the content. See our case studies for examples of how this has worked in practice.

Perhaps the best thing for your business could be a hybrid model, where you have a certain amount of marketing support in-house but could do with some more support while you’re struggling to hire someone or are working to upskill the staff you have?

We'd be more than happy to help.

Pivoting your marketing plan

Marketing plans used to be written once a year and left alone. That doesn't work anymore.

Markets shift. Economies change. New technology turns up. Your plan needs to be able to adapt without falling apart.

So how do we allow for that?

The most effective approach is to anchor your plan around broader goals and core messaging (the expertise you want to be known for, the problems you solve for your audience) and treat specific tactics and timelines as the flexible layer. When circumstances change, you adjust the tactics. You don't lose sight of what you're trying to achieve.

Measurement is what keeps this manageable. If you're tracking what's working and what isn't, you can make informed decisions about where to shift effort rather than reacting blindly.

Change never means stop marketing. It means the plan evolves.

Those were the top challenges for recruitment marketers, so let’s talk about challenges for your audience

Let’s start by defining who they are.

In recruitment, these will almost always fall into two categories, clients and candidates, and, depending on what industry you’re recruiting in, will probably depend on which is in most demand right now. 

If you're recruiting in sectors with skills shortages, for instance, you need to understand what motivates the candidates you're trying to attract.

• What matters to them in a role?

• What would make them consider a move?

• What drew them to this career in the first place?

Talk to your placed candidates and your clients. Ask what makes their work worthwhile, what trends they're noticing, what's changed in their sector recently. Your consultants are having these conversations already. Turn that insight into content.

Tools like Answer the Public and Google Trends show you what people are searching for around your topics. AI tools like ChatGPT, Gemni and Claude are useful for brainstorming content angles and exploring questions your audience might have. 

Give people what they need

Solving any of these challenges comes back to the same principles:

• Answer the question they've been searching for.

• Solve the problem they're stuck on.

• Show them you know what you're talking about.

• Understand what your team needs and give it to them.

• Know what success looks like to your leadership and measure against it.

Need support solving your recruitment marketing challenges? We can help.

Author: Jennifer Wright

As BlueSky PR’s Head of Marketing, with almost 10 years’ prior experience in the recruitment industry, Jennifer writes articles and guest posts to inspire recruitment agencies to build their brands, improve their content, bring in more leads and generally make their lives easier.