According to a recent Gartner Group Study, “By 2011, organizations that do not manage their employment brands will fail to attract key talent.” Companies with the strongest, most visible recruitment brand are already attracting and retaining the top players and will continue to beat out the competition as the job market steadily improves. In an effort to help our clients compete for top talent, we’re providing information on Building Your Recruitment Brand. The way you are perceived by potential candidates can have a major impact on your recruiting and hiring success. In today’s employment market, you may be attracting high numbers of candidates for your positions, but the quality is likely lacking. By strengthening your recruitment and employment brand, you will not only attract the right candidates, you’ll have more offers accepted and will improve your ability to retain top employees.
Cathy Ashbaugh,
President, Pacific Shore Resources, inc.
Hiring Challenges? Build Your Recruitment Brand
How does a potential candidate respond when he/she hears about an opening in your firm? “I’d love to work there!” “I really don’t know too much about them.” Or maybe, “Forget it, they’re bad news”. The collection of perceptions, thoughts and feelings about your company as a potential employer is known as your Recruitment Brand. Every company has one, positive or negative, whether or not they know it. An example of a company with a fantastic recruitment brand is Google. Their brand is so strong that stellar candidates are willing to brave an interview process filled with mind-bending puzzles and complex algorithm development on the fly, all the while knowing that Google proudly hires “1 out of 100” candidates. Why? Google has communicated to the technology world that they are a great place to work and great candidates want to work there.
Here are some suggestions for getting started
FIND OUT WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT YOU
In order to build your brand, you’ll need to find out where your reputation currently stands. Interview your employees. What do they like about working for you? What don’t they like? Engage HR and Technical Managers to review information gathered from exit interviews and turned down offers. Do an internet search to see what’s been discussed online about your company. Ask the IT/Software Contractors who’ve worked for you in the past for feedback. They are usually willing to share (and frequently do, online) information since they are not vested as an employee. Ask your outside recruiters for the general perception of your company in the marketplace. What response do they get when presenting your opportunities to “A” players? To a potential candidate, a long standing job posting may send the message of high turnover, lack of commitment to hire or inability to make decisions. Find out what obstacles your recruiter must overcome, if any, to interest top candidates in interviewing with your firm. Also, gather the reasons they DO want to interview with you.
DEVELOP A PROACTIVE MESSAGE
Utilize the information you’ve gathered to develop a positive message to proactively send out into the market. What is unique and interesting about your firm? Why do employees come to work for you and why do they stay? Technical challenge, generous salary and benefits, flexibility, fun and casual culture, hard driving, family oriented, smart people and stability are all selling points. Each company has something that sets them apart. As the saying goes, “one man’s throwaway is another man’s treasure.” You don’t have to appeal to everyone—just the people you want to attract. Communicate this message throughout your team, department and/or company and promote it when interviewing potential candidates. Brand it in the minds of every employee and candidate. Post it online and promote it wherever possible.
CLEAN UP YOUR REPUTATION
OK, so you found that there are some not so great perceptions of your firm floating around. What can you do? First, welcome the feedback. Work to fix the problems internally, and then communicate that message through a variety of channels. Give your employees some freedom to “put the word out” through social media, focusing on what they like and value about the company. Acknowledge problems in the past and the steps you’ve taken the correct those problems—think Toyota—to employees, candidates and recruiters. If you have the commitment of the Executive and HR teams, a company-wide initiative can be put in place to improve. If not, work on your circle of influence to create a culture of excellence within a culture.
TOOLS FOR COMMUNICATING YOUR MESSAGE
Your Company Website is one of the first places a prospective candidate will go to learn more about you. What does yours say about you? Is it up to date? Are your positions posted? The time and attention you invest in the recruitment section of your site will convey the level of importance you place on hiring the right people. Add details on the company such as company culture, awards, benefits, team bonding events, charity and service projects, customer and employee testimonials, pictures, videos and a message from the President/CEO.
Social Media is a widely accepted source of information for research. Many companies are asking key employees to stay active in with online user group postings, blogs, tweets, etc. as a means to attract potential candidates—especially highly sought after passive candidates. Reaching people where they congregate online, as opposed to waiting for them to answer a job posting, is a key strategic initiative for top companies. In addition, we’ve become a society who strongly values a 3rd party opinion. From Amazon book reviews to LinkedIn recommendations, we feel more secure knowing there are individuals willing to provide positive press about a product or service we are evaluating. Similarly, candidates are looking for ways to feel more secure about making a job change in tentative times.
Engage Your Recruiting Partner to get the word out. Recruiters talk with 100’s of potential candidates each week. This is an opportunity to have your message personally delivered directly to your target market. At PSRi, we strive to communicate a factual, positive and compelling message about each client we represent. We make it our mission to generate excitement and interest in our clients and their positions. Some of these candidates may make it through the screening process, many will not. In those cases, our goal is to have them walk away able to spread the word about “the great company they just heard about” to generate referrals.
If you take hiring seriously, define and build your recruitment brand to stay ahead of the competition. You don’t need a huge budget or household name to position your firm at the head of the pack. With effort and commitment, you can become an Employer of Choice in your field. Let us know how we can help! We can recommend several formal resources for putting your plan in place. 714-694-1234
PSRi Services and Capabilities
Pacific Shore Resources was established in 1995 with the intention of producing outstanding recruitment results for our clients, while maintaining a level of professionalism and personalized attention rarely found in the recruiting industry. Our team recognizes that getting the right person for the job is critical to a company’s success or failure and we take our responsibility to heart, as you may see from our client references. No assignment is too large or too small, too challenging or too specialized. We become an extension of your firm—enthusiastically presenting your job opportunities to top-notch candidates who may or may be actively searching, and we work closely with both parties through every step of the process to ensure a successful hire. When getting the right employee or contractor is a priority, you need a recruiting partner you can count on to produce results. Count on the team at PSRi.
Software Management/Leadership, Director and Vice President Levels, Software Development and Engineering, Web Design and Development, Firmware and Embedded Engineering, Research and Development/Engineering, Quality Assurance and Test, Business Systems Analysis and Design, Project and Product Management, Web Design and Development, Technical and Client Support, Network Engineering and Administration, Unix Systems Administration, Systems Engineering, Professional Services, IT Management
Visit us at www.psresources.com
PSRi Clients and References
A company is known by the clients it keeps--for the long term. We value the relationships we've developed with our clients and candidates over the years. "Caring", "Professional", "Dedicated", "Saves Us Time and Money" are some of the terms our client's use to describe us. We invite you to see for yourself! Client References
