Top Recruitment Marketing Agencies — 2023

Recruitment marketing agencies can help you define your employer brand and evangelize it to the right talent. But how exactly do they do it — and how do you know if they’re the right fit for your company? Here, we break down the common reasons why you might need a recruitment marketing agency:

• Define your EVP: Your EVP, or employer value proposition, is a fancy name for the answer to the question "why do people want to work at your company?" It includes everything from your core positioning to strategic direction to values — basically anything you’d want to share to appeal to prospective candidates and employees. If you haven’t defined your EVP or don’t know where to start, recruitment marketing agencies can do the heavy lifting for you. This is especially true if you are going to define specific EVPs for different candidate personas (engineers, POC, people in the London office, etc).
• Build assets: To tell your company story effectively — i.e. so you attract the best candidates — you need a variety of assets, from employee testimonials, blog posts, photos and videos. Not to mention a career site to organize and share everything. It sounds like a lot — and that’s because it is. Fortunately, you can outsource a bulk of this work to a recruitment marketing agency.
• Manage talent communities: Recruitment marketing agencies can help manage and engage with the passive candidates in your pipeline. Since you know they’re already interested in your company, your recruitment marketing agency can engage with them until the time is right for them to apply. Many times this will involve the use of a recruitment CRM, either one you buy, or a tool the agency uses.
• Manage paid media: If you have job advertising campaigns or want to launch them across job boards, LinkedIn, etc., many recruitment marketing agencies will manage them for you. They’ll handle content creation, ad placement, media buying, and more. This can save time, as well as money given the expertise an agency brings which means your job budget will go far.
• Manage third-party sites: In addition to a dedicated career site, you likely have profiles on sites like Glassdoor, Comparably, and Fairygodboss. These will all have to be managed and updated with the latest EVP and other assets. To save your team the time, you can have your recruitment marketing agency take over. Some will even run review campaigns where employees are asked on a regular basis to leave reviews on these sites.

Many TA professionals make the same mistakes when investing in a recruitment marketing agency — and we want to make sure you avoid them. Here are some considerations that can help you make the right investment from the start:

• Know what you need: While the use-cases and features are generally the same across the board, certain agencies are better at certain things. For example, some are really good at creating content, some are more analytical and can buy the right media at the best price, and others actually just focus on one thing (like testimonials). So, think about what your primary needs are as it relates to recruitment marketing so you can decide what you’ll benefit from the most from an agency. Of course, if you’re looking for full-service, you will certainly find a solution for that, too.
• Be mindful of tech recommendations: Some agencies get commissions when they recommend certain tech products. So, if an agency you’re considering is trying to sell you on another provider for something, be sure to do your own due-diligence. After all, it might not be the most unbiased recommendation.
• A note on costs. The vast majority of agencies are really only designed for large companies — and costs can add up very quickly as a result. Not to mention, measuring the ROI of content like employee testimonials can be challenging. All this to say, make sure you have a clear picture of what your costs are/will be so you can budget accordingly, ask agencies how they calculate ROI, then pick see which ones can confidently keep you within your budget.

Using a recruitment marketing agency comes with a host of benefits, with the most obvious one being that you can attract and hire high-quality candidates at scale. Other benefits include:

• Build pipelines for passive and top talent: Not only can your strong employer brand better convince top talent to apply, you’ll also be able to better engage the passive candidates in your talent communities. The highest quality candidates will ultimately want to apply and seek out job opps whenever they can.
• Expand hiring funnel: You’ll be able to maximize your reach and expand your talent pool by getting job ads and job listings across more job boards in less time.
• Increase diversity hiring: As part of your EVP, you can talk about your diversity initiatives and why your company is a great place to work for BIPOC, women, vets, etc.
• More efficient job ad buys: With programmatic job ads, you’ll be smarter with how you spend your job advertising budget. After all, you only pay when someone takes action — not for simply posting an ad in the first place.
• Aligned branding: You’ll get slicker branding that aligns with your company’s overall branding, ultimately making your marketing team happy (and preventing you from constantly bugging them for brand assets, approvals, etc.).
• Help with tool selection: Agencies can recommend a variety of tools that you might need, like career site CMS, ATS, job seeker screening, etc. They are experts and usually can get you discounts. Just remember that they likely get a kick back, so do your due-diligence on their recommendations before you actually invest.
• Create positive hiring experience: How a potential candidate applies to your company is really their first impression of what it might be like to work there. Recruitment marketing agencies can help you create a positive application and hiring process. Ultimately, your most qualified candidates will be more likely to apply and accept an offer.

Increased productivity: A recruitment marketing agency can make your talent acquisition efforts more efficient and your recruiters more productive. To see what this can do to your bottom line, check out our HR Tech ROI Calculators.

Pricing is dependent on a number of variables, including an agency’s focus. For example:

• Percentage of spend: Agencies that focus on helping you buy media (and place job ads) will charge a percentage of media spend — usually 15-20%. 
• Retainer/Hourly: Agencies focused on more traditional employer branding activities will charge hourly and usually require a retainer. Retainers typically start at $5,000/month and hourly rates typically start at $100/hour. 
• Per Project: You can also pay per project if you want to scope something like a new career site design or EVP creation.

At the end of the day, you need to have a clear picture of what exactly you need from a recruitment marketing agency. From there, you’ll be able to narrow down the right agencies to consider and the right pricing questions to ask during demos.

Recruitment marketing agencies can take a lot off of your plate. In general, they offer similar services — like employer branding, media buying, and content creation — but that’s not all. Here is a list of common features you can expect to find in a recruitment marketing agency:

• Job ad buying: Many recruitment marketing agencies (RMA) offer programmatic job advertising, which ultimately gets you the best return on your spend. With programmatic, you pay only for a job ad’s performance — i.e. clicks or applies — and you have more flexibility and control over how and where your money is spent. But these aren’t the only ads you might need. RMAs will also manage ad buying across social media, for magazine, print, and outdoor ads, SMS, text and email marketing, career fairs and hiring events, and more.
• Reporting: Using data and analytics, recruitment marketing agencies can help you better understand and optimize your talent acquisition and recruitment marketing efforts. You’ll be able to track job ad performance across all vendors, and get other actionable insights to help you make more informed decisions — and hopefully boost your ROI.
• Employer branding audits: RMAs will work with you to create the most compelling employer brand and EVP: one that reflects who your company is, where it is going, and why someone should apply. They’ll help craft company profiles and job descriptions as well as other assets that help tell your EVP.‍
• Content creation: With creative design teams, RMAs can help you develop content for a variety of your talent acquisition efforts. This includes ad creative, blog posts, job descriptions, etc.
• Hands on service: The best recruitment marketing agencies will have a dedicated team that is responsible for project managing your company's efforts. You should meet this team before signing a contract as their competence will have a direct impact on your experience!

As you talk to recruitment marketing agencies and do demos, prepare a list of questions so you can really direct the conversation. That way, it’ll feel less like a sales pitch and you’ll get a clear sense of how they’ll actually be able to help you solve your talent acquisition issues. Here are some questions to start with:

• Do you use your own technology or partner with third parties?
• Do you receive a commission for re-selling any of those tools?
• Do you partner with other firms for content creation that falls outside of your expertise?
• How do you think about the ROI of your offering?
• What is your pricing model?
• How much effort is required from our team?
• Who will be my day to day account team?
• How do you keep clients updated on your progress?
• How will this solution fit into the rest of my tech stack and therefore what integrations do I need/do you offer?
• How will others in the organization use this solution?
• What are the key features I want to ask about?

When you select your recruitment marketing agency, you’ll work with them on an onboarding/implementation plan specific to the services they offer and the features you’re going to get. For example:

• Strategy planning: Chances are you'll want to do a few meetings to map out exactly what you want to accomplish, and on what timelines. A pro tip here is to do this during the sale process so that the money you are spending is on the efforts that will impact your recruitment marketing efforts, and less so on planning.
• EVP/Brand Voice: Early on, you'll want to define your EVPs and how you want your brand to come across to different types of people you're trying to reach. EVPs and candidate personas will act as north stars as you start to create content, advertise, and generally market to talent.
• Content: For agencies that create content, you’ll need to scope out what they’ll work on and what assets they might need from you to get started. You’ll also identify internal parties that will require input; for example, your marketing or design team might need to sign off on creative and/or messaging. 
• Job ads: They’ll need ATS integration so they can see what types of jobs you are hiring for, what job boards you currently use (and have contracts with), etc.
• Owned Media: Your career site, microsites, job posts, and everything else you own will need to be updated, consistent with your messaging, and optimized to convert visitors into your talent pipelines (talent communities or ATS).
• Marketing: In addition to the above, there will be lots of other "marketing" that goes on. This could be nurture campaigns from your CRM, events, social, webinars, PR and a whole host of other ideas.

To get a clear sense of what your implementation will look like, talk to your agency reps during your demos. They should be able to provide clarity on necessary integrations, deliverables, timelines, etc.

What is recruitment marketing?

Recruitment marketing is the process of finding, engaging, and nurturing job seekers before they apply. It is the very top of the talent acquisition funnel, and covers every step of the process before a candidate submits an application.

How does recruitment marketing work?

Recruitment marketing, as is in the name, applies marketing tactics to recruiting functions. It works by building your employer brand, inciting candidate interest in working for your company, and convincing candidates to take action on that interest by applying.

What do recruitment marketing platforms do?

Recruitment marketing platforms act as a marketing and advertising agency that will help your recruiting team attract and hire talent. Some aspects they help with are:

• Defining employer value proposition
• Building assets, such as employee testimonials and content for career sites
• Managing talent communities
• Connecting with third-party sites such as Glassdoor
• Handling job advertising campaigns

What are the benefits of recruitment marketing platforms?

Recruitment marketing platforms offer many benefits, such as:

• Aligned branding
• Expanded hiring funnel
• Passive and top talent pipelines
• Increased diversity hiring
• Efficient job ad buys
• Positive hiring experience for candidates
• Enhanced tool selection for CMS, ATS, career sites, etc.