Key takeaways:
- Strategic alignment for success: Mastering budget allocation is pivotal in the competitive talent landscape. Senior talent marketing leaders emphasize collaboration and refined resource channeling for maximal recruitment impact.
- Collaborative efforts across business units: Collaborating with business lines isn’t just about cost-saving — it’s a pathway to success. Showcase the value of uniting business units while adapting budgets based on past success and non-unit-related expenses.
- Metrics for informed decision-making: Key metrics, such as cost per click and applicant conversion rates, drive talent marketing success. Reporting the impact of talent marketing to senior leadership requires a meticulous approach, and using data increases buy-in.
Mastering strategic budget allocation is pivotal for elevating your talent marketing initiatives. In a fiercely competitive landscape, effective resource channeling distinguishes between attracting exceptional candidates and missing out on top talent.
Senior talent marketing leaders recently shared insights during a Talent Marketing Board panel on showcasing the ROI of talent marketing efforts on optimizing budget allocation for maximal recruitment impact.
From collaboration across business units to the proactive showcasing of value year-round, here’s how you can refine your budget to enhance your talent marketing efforts.
Collaborate With Business Partners to Optimize Your Talent Marketing Budget
During the panel, talent leaders shared that partnering with business lines is more than a cost-saving tactic — it’s a crucial pathway to success. By aligning efforts, you can leverage diverse expertise and resources to refine your strategy.
Aligning Budgets Across All Business Units
Jojo Longnecker, Head of Employer Brand and Talent Marketing at Fidelity Investments, emphasized the importance of budget collaboration across all business units.
At Fidelity, she said the approach isn’t one-size-fits-all. Some units have their own budgets, while others work in tandem with the talent marketing team to allocate resources.
“We’re partnering with their HR and TA teams that have their own groups, and we are working with them to help us understand what their forecast might be, what they think they’re going to be hiring for, and which of those are harder to fill roles,” Jojo said.
An essential aspect of this process is evaluating past efforts to inform budgetary decisions for the upcoming year. Then, Jojo said they focus on the spend that isn’t directly related to the business units and the hiring.
We’re partnering with their HR and TA teams that have their own groups, and we are working with them to help us understand what their forecast might be.
Jojo Longnecker, Head of Employer Brand and Talent Marketing at Fidelity Investments
This includes expenses such as technology for creative work, hiring external agencies or individuals for creative projects, and funding research activities like brand research. Jojo said her team manages the budget around these efforts to decide what can be done in-house.
Showcase Value Year-Round for Inclusive Budget Conversations
Denielle Waite, Senior Manager of Communications and Employer Brand at Harbor Freight Tools, shed light on her approach to collaborating with business partners. She stressed the importance of demonstrating the value of employment branding throughout the year.
“The thing that I found works best is not waiting until you start budgeting or budget planning to have that conversation,” Denielle said. “My goal is to try to showcase the value of employment branding and what we’re doing throughout the entire year so there’s not a surprise when it comes time to talk about budgets.”
She added how this proactive strategy not only highlights the significance of employment branding but also establishes a transparent foundation for budget discussions.
My goal is to try to showcase the value of employment branding and what we’re doing throughout the entire year so there’s not a surprise when it comes time to talk about budgets.
Denielle Waite, Senior Manager of Communications and Employer Brand at Harbor Freight Tools
Shared Goals: A Pathway to Unified Budgeting
Denielle also discussed the concept of going beyond established forecasts and highlighted the success of identifying shared goals and interests across business lines.
“For example, our marketing team is responsible for ensuring successful new store openings,” Denielle said. “We have to staff those new stores, and it turns out when you do advertising for hiring, that draws in customers. And when you advertise for new stores, that draws in candidates.”
By recognizing the shared goals between recruitment advertising and customer engagement, they discovered a mutual benefit for shared budgets.
A Centralized Service Provides Clear Goals and Insights on What’s Successful
Steve Crumley, Principal Recruitment Marketing Specialist and Talent Acquisition Systems Analyst at Leidos, said his team operates as a centralized service, which helps to provide tools to various divisions within the company.
They base their budget on yearly hiring forecasts, analyzing previous strategies while maintaining a hands-on approach. Steve said he constantly engages with vendors, enabling him to monitor the effectiveness of advertising efforts.
“I meet with them at least monthly, and in many cases, every other week to track what’s happening, how our advertising is working, and what’s really successful for us today,” Steve said.
We have drawn our budget down a little bit this year, and reduced our monthly spend in the places that we can. Even reducing that spend, we’re still seeing more applicants.
Steve Crumley, Principal Recruitment Marketing Specialist and Talent Acquisition Systems Analyst at Leidos
He shared that in recent months, he’s seen a significant increase in applicant numbers, attributed to factors like the pandemic’s impact on job seekers’ motivations. And despite a reduced budget, his team continues to attract more applicants and has optimized spending per job, applicant, and click.
“Because of that, we have drawn our budget down a little bit this year, and reduced our monthly spend in the places that we can,” Steve said. “Even reducing that spend, we’re still seeing more applicants.”
Measuring the ROI of Talent Marketing Initiatives and Informing Budget Decisions
The success of talent marketing initiatives hinges on the ability to quantify their return on investment and effectively communicate these insights to company executives.
During the panel, Hillary, Steve, and Denielle discussed more on the metrics that are vital in gauging the effectiveness of their talent marketing strategies.
Metrics and KPIs for Talent Marketing Initiatives
Steve highlighted the significance of analyzing trends and benchmarking against previous years. He shared that his team analyzes the cost per click for various advertising platforms, such as LinkedIn and Indeed.
Steve also said he looks at applicant conversion rates, analyzing the number of clicks required to generate an applicant and further to secure a hire. He also noted a trend where higher spending didn’t create better-quality candidates.
“The boards will tend to encourage you to spend more money in order to get the better candidates or the right candidates,” Steve said. “What I found is that when I spend more on a group of jobs, I do tend to get more traffic on those jobs, but the quality tends to be lower. That’s really counterintuitive.”
Instead, he explained that a more balanced spending approach often results in a greater number of engaged and qualified candidates.
Reporting on Quality and Engagement to Senior Leaders
Jojo talked about the importance of candidate quality and engagement, and shared that talent leaders should closely monitor metrics like impressions, engagements, website traffic, and conversion rates.
She also said striking a balance between volume and quality, referred to as the “inflection point,” is key to talent marketing ROI.
“There’s sort of this inflection point where you can end up driving too many applications, but your quality is going down,” Jojo said.”That’s definitely something that we’re digging into to help inform us.”
She also shared that reporting talent marketing impact to senior leadership is another challenge. Over the years, she explained that Fidelity analyzed spending across business units, tracked application rates, and focused on improving the quality of their outreach.
They also introduced a brand perception study to gauge awareness and perceptions of Fidelity as an employer. This study, conducted over three years, examines how their efforts influence people’s perception of the company, even accounting for industry-wide trends.
Learn More From Your Peers on Measuring the ROI of Your Talent Marketing Strategy
In the journey to optimize talent marketing budgets, the overarching theme is clear — a strategic, collaborative, and metrics-driven approach creates the path to not just attracting, but securing top-tier talent.
If you lead employer branding and recruitment marketing at a large organization, you can benchmark with your peers in the Talent Marketing Board and gain more actionable insights from senior talent leaders like Jojo, Denielle, and Steve on the top challenges you’re facing.
You can apply to learn more about how your peers are addressing topics like proving the ROI of talent marketing, enhancing employee value propositions, optimizing careers sites, and more.
