Let’s talk about marketing and ‘recruiting qualified leads’

I’ve been a marketer for nearly 20 years.

I’ve seen funnels, flywheels and frameworks.

Tested and tried more things than I can remember and have come to one simple truth: you learn marketing by doing it, watching what happens, and doing it again.

Whatever method floats your boat, there’s one thing that’s been constant in my SaaS marketing journey – there’s always a clear handoff from marketing to sales.

I wrote about this handoff and why marketing and sales sometimes butt heads back in 2012. The more we dig into what our Boostie customers are dealing with today, the more we realize – this stuff is just as relevant now as it was then.

In the talent acquisition world, marketing has basically meant throwing job postings on boards and crossing your fingers for applications.

Job boards have their place, but here’s what’s interesting – more and more agencies and companies are driving traffic to their own career sites. That’s where we can start tackling the first big problem.

See, marketing’s job is pretty straightforward: get the *right* people to your website, show them stuff they actually care about, and turn those *right* people into leads, sales, or opportunities.

Even though companies are starting to mix up their talent marketing game, about 93% of spend still goes straight to job boards.

And targeting? Pretty much non-existent.

(Sorry in advance to all the forklift drivers out there…)

The complaint we hear all the time is “I don’t want my [insert fancy job title] ads showing up in front of forklift drivers.”

No idea why forklift drivers caught all this shade, but they’re always the go-to example when people rant about job board targeting fails.

So, step 1 of turning marketing qualified leads into recruiting qualified leads? Actually targeting the right people from the jump.

Once we’re aiming at the right candidate persona, how do we squeeze as much value as possible from that traffic?

This is where thinking in tiers makes sense.

Some folks just aren’t ready to hit that apply button. Let’s call them window shoppers.

You burned time, effort and cash getting them to your careers page – why not try to grab a little info to keep them on the hook?

Getting something from those not-ready-to-apply visitors doesn’t have to be rocket science. Drop in a well-timed popup about job alerts and watch your funnel numbers climb.

Grab some basic info like what jobs they’re into and where they’re at, then build out those candidate profiles over time. Us marketing nerds call this ‘progressive profiling’.

It’s pretty simple – get a little info to start, then ask a few more questions here and there until you’ve got the full picture.

This helps you send them jobs they actually care about and makes it way more likely that casual browser becomes a solid applicant.

Our job in marketing is to hand over leads/candidates that are as qualified as possible. That way, recruiting spends less time on basic qualification and more time figuring out next steps.

Now we’re at the bottom of the funnel – where shit gets real – the job application.

SHRM says 92% of people bail on job applications. Fucking A.

And according to newer stuff, Gen-Z will bounce if your online application is janky, stupid or too complicated.

This is just like checking out on an e-commerce site. We’ve all rage-quit trying to buy something online, and job seekers are no different.

First up: make sure people can actually get through your application without feeling like they’re using Windows 95.

It’s also our last shot as marketers to make sure we’re delivering quality.

Second: figure out if they actually fit the job they’re applying to.

This is where being flexible and scalable really matters.

For basically forever, hiring has asked the same boring questions:

• first name
• last name
• email address
• resume
• phone number

These questions get asked no matter what the job is, and they tell us jack about whether someone fits a specific role.

For marketing, this is our chance to squeeze in a little more quality before handing off to recruiting.

Asking 3-7 questions about fit shouldn’t be a big deal if we’ve 1) made the process smooth and 2) gotten the right person to our job in the first place.

When people apply, you can use skills questions + their resume + the job description to better understand who’s coming through.

For recruiters, this means the people hitting your desk are easy to rank and evaluate.

Let’s say you get 100 applicants. 50 need sponsorship to work in the US, which isn’t an option for this role – boom, down to 50.

Then we drop to 25 because their resumes don’t match the skills we need. Now we’re getting somewhere.

Throw in a couple skills-based questions to rank those 25, and you’ve got scores from 95 down to 75.

If I’m recruiting, this is gold.

Marketing has done the heavy lifting to make sure the people coming through are the best possible fits.

Now I can spend my day starting with the most promising candidates and working down the list. Faster placements, shorter time-to-fill.

Think marketing’s job is done after the handoff?

Nope. We use what happens post-apply to target better and optimize the whole talent marketing funnel.

Yeah, this all sounds like a lot of work and potentially expensive, but it’s exactly why we built Boostie.

Scattered tools, depending on ad agencies, and tech headaches have made TA and staffing cost way more than it needs to.

Need help sorting out your funnel? Hit us up.