To succeed in the digital age, it’s important to keep your efforts and initiatives inline with some of the world’s fastest growing financial services companies. Let’s explore.
The financial advice industry is undergoing a period of change, so if you want to be one of the fastest growing financial services companies in the next few years, now’s the time to change. The average age of a financial adviser today is 51 – and with 38% of advisers expected to retire in the next 10 years, firms need to attract younger advisers to fill the gap. But it’s not that easy: competition is hotting up and the war on talent is getting tougher. Despite more than 83% of businesses naming talent acquisition as the number one priority in their organisation last year, 91% of organisations in the UK have had difficulties hiring employees over the past 12 months. Today’s market is extremely candidate-driven and candidates are becoming more demanding than ever before – and with so many companies fighting over talent, it’s more important than ever that your financial advice firm stands out. But how?
It’s time to get digital
It’s time for financial advice to enter the digital age. The fastest growing financial services companies that will survive the war on talent are the ones with a digital presence – which is why you need a digital recruitment strategy to get ahead. Traditional recruitment methods just aren’t effective on their own anymore. When you think about recruitment, you often think about cold calling, but as an expensive, ineffective, and not to mention annoying sales technique, the relevance of cold calling and traditional techniques is on the wane.
So, why the change? In recent years, technology has been the prime disruptor of the recruitment industry, prompting a change in candidate mindset. Instant access to information and growing connectivity has turned the tables on recruiters, giving candidates far more control – and coupled with advancements in technology and increasing awareness of work/life balance possibilities in young professionals, it’s more important than ever for financial advice firms to have a solid digital strategy to appeal to the financial advisers of the future.
92% of the UK population has access to the internet; 81% of the population has access to a mobile phone; 85% access the internet at least once a day and 48% of the UK population have active social media account. So if your current recruitment efforts are yielding poor results, it might be time to evaluate what you’re doing, implement change and start building a digital recruitment strategy…
What is digital recruitment?
Digital recruitment uses a combination of traditional and digital marketing techniques to attract more candidates to your firm and build a more positive impression of your organisation. Social media and content marketing is a growing industry and recruitment agencies are having to adapt their recruitment methods to this digital age. From optimising websites to social media, blogs to ebooks and whitepapers to webinars, in today’s world, content is officially king. Combine that with a shift in sales strategy to focus on consultative, helpful selling approaches with candidates who are ready to talk, and you have a powerful recruitment strategy built for today’s new candidates.
Digital recruitment allows you to regularly engage with your talent pool, keeping them engaged and interested when a suitable vacancy comes up. From creating and sharing helpful content on social media to promoting why your firm is such a great place to work online, to using CRM systems to send personalised, branded emails to passive candidates to keep your front of mind. It’s about sharing your expert knowledge with candidates so they can come to you when they are ready. Here’s how:
Create helpful content
Building a strong brand can help to win new clients and new candidates. But growing a strong and trusted brand takes time – and one way to increase visibility and appeal to the candidates of the future is by content creation. From blogs to downloads and webinars to whitepapers, you want to be a consistent voice that your candidates can rely on for industry information; and regularly sharing original content is a great way to engage with your audience and set your advice firm apart from the competition.
Utilise email marketing
People like people – it’s as simple as that. So when it comes to attracting candidates to your advice firm, it’s about building relationships and keeping communication open. Perhaps your candidates aren’t looking for a job right now? That’s fine. By keeping in regular contact through email marketing, you can continue to nurture your relationships until they are in a position to consider a new role. It’s about keeping your potential candidates warm until they are ready to move roles.
Use targeted adverts
The way candidates are searching for jobs has changed. People search via social media on their phones to look for a job – which means targeted ads are an incredibly powerful way to reach out to high-quality candidates. Social sites such as Facebook and LinkedIn allow you to post cleverly targeted adverts by adjusting the demographics and location of your audience. So if you need financial advisers to join your firm in Bristol, you have the tools to target the most relevant people in that area – which means you can be confident you are attracting relevant, high-quality candidates.
Embrace the power of social
There are now over three billion social media users worldwide – and the use of social media for recruitment has grown 54% in the past five years. As well as sharing helpful content online, portraying your company’s personality through social media can help you attract more candidates. Did you know that 59% of candidates use social media to research companies they are interested in? So if you want to get ahead of the competition and win the war on talent, it’s really important to shout out about your company culture online – especially seeing as the world of financial advice is often seen as stuffy and old-fashioned. In addition, social media is also a great way to connect with passive candidates who aren’t necessarily looking for a job.
Why partner with Recruit UK
All this is very well and good, but it takes a great deal of time and money. In order to be effective, you need to work hard at your digital strategy – there’s no point in posting once on social media then leaving months in between, or writing one download that racked up hundreds of views and never writing anything else. However, as financial advisers, you need to free up your time to give advice and build relationships with clients rather than focusing all of your efforts on recruitment and marketing.
If you decide to hire in-house, you’re looking at a big expense. First of all, it would cost approximately £60- 80,000 to hire an experienced recruiter alone. Then you’ve got to factor in the cost of a digital marketing manager to take care of your marketing strategy, which is probably another £45,000. On top of that, you’ve got advertising spend, SEO budgets, content writers… the time and effort involved in implementing your own digital recruitment in house is never-ending.
So what’s the solution? Well, that’s where Recruit UK’s digital recruitment solutions come in. By partnering with Recruit UK, you can take advantage of our tailor-made recruitment strategies for financial advice firms running on 12-month contracts, and you’ll also benefit from our traditional recruitment package too.
What you’ll get in the digital recruitment solution package
Branded careers page – A branded careers page that gets shared across our combined 1st connection following of over 80,000 financial services/planning candidates UK wide
Branded monthly blog – We write an engaging a relevant article, that is shared to over 85,000 1st connections on LinkedIn and is part of a targeted paid advertising campaign across Facebook and LinkedIn.
Branded digital download – Helpful and insightful guides sponsored and shared across multiple social media platforms and features on our monthly email newsletter. Used to capture passive candidates contact details.
Branded job adverts – A personalised premium job advert posted on relevant job boards, our website, LinkedIn and shared via every consultant’s professional network.
Feature on our email marketing – Your branded article and job features on Recruit UK monthly email marketing.
Analytics and performance review – Regular transparent feedback on the performance of the digital marketing strategy and recruiter efforts.
Benefit from SEO and Google ranking – Your content ranks in Google, which means you build a bigger organic audience each month we release new branded content. You also piggyback Recruit UK SEO and marketing efforts, so more relevant visitors to our site means more exposure for you and more inbound leads.
The time is now
Within the next five years, as advisers continue to leave the industry, the war on talent is only going to get tougher. If you want to last in the digital age and be one of the fastest growing financial services companies, it’s essential that you bring your recruitment strategy into the 21st century. Contact Recruit UK today to find out more about our digital recruitment packages and how we can help.
