New Year Employer Brand Resolution
Remember the cool kids in high school? They were good-looking, funny, athletic, or let’s face it, rich. And most everyone knew who they were and who they hung out with. If you didn’t have the qualifications, it was nearly impossible to change your clique. No matter how much you wanted to, or tried to belong in one of these groups, it became obvious that you were desperately trying to fit in.
Flash forward a couple of decades, and we’re no longer talking about high school, but about the world of work. Each successful company solves problems, big or small. Some are entertaining and athletic, some are brainy and scientific. Some have big budgets and some are scrappy startups. Information about these companies flows faster than it did back in the lunchroom or crowded halls between classes. It is how we learn and label, or brand organizations.
For the past few years, the term ‘employer branding‘ has grown in popularity and conference circuits. Companies are planning to spend 39% more on it next year.* It is the long term strategy to attract talent to your company. I sat in on an executive roundtable earlier this year, where recruiting leaders were discussing this very topic. “How can we create it? How can we control it? How can we change it?“ But the employer brand is not just what the HR or Marketing department says it is. They’re not the only source of information.
We have career blogs, company review sites, employment forums, networking happy hours and private conversations to supply insight and perspective on the true employee experience. The good, bad and the downright hideous are being shared and there’s nothing we can do about it. Or is there?
Hint: the answer is NOT to call yourself COOL. (or hip, or funny, or work hard/play hard)
The answer is to BECOME those things, if that’s what your company’s leadership aspires to be. You have been hiring those kinds of folks for a while, right? Ask them what they like about working there. Ask them what they don’t like about working there. Use that to define your voice and value proposition. Then do these three things:
Record it - podcasts, videos, pictures, blog posts
Share it - internally, externally, career website, social media channels, press releases, even news channel stories. Everyone loves to hear about a company that’s succeeding.
Share it some more - ask your employees to share it, and reward them for it. Their voices will be heard and valued above the hum of the corporate marketing machine.
Most importantly, measure the reach of these activities. Which are being seen and shared the most? Shorten and track those links and plug Google Analytics into all of your career landing pages. Look at the topics that are resonating with your audiences. And I said audiences with an ‘s’ because you should have more than one. Does your IT department interview your sales candidates? No? They should probably have their own message.
Lastly, if your mission, vision and values as an organization don’t match up with the internal and external opinions or impressions that you discover in your research, don’t try to convince people that they do. Your talent attraction problem will turn into talent engagement and retention problems, which take more effort, money and time to fix.
Your company’s New Year’s resolution shouldn’t be to become one of the cool kids. It should be to show off your company to those kids who already think you’re pretty cool. And that you’re hiring.
*Source: Employer Brand International Global Research Study
Bryan Chaney is an experienced global leader in recruitment and talent attraction. He consults with portfolio clients on talent strategy as a Sourcing Executive at Kenexa, an IBM company. He is the founder of CareerConnects and was previously the Manager of Global Social Media Strategy for Aon talent acquisition. Prior to Aon, Bryan worked in recruitment, technology, and marketing providing him insights into the marketing of hiring, the importance of technology and the buying process candidates make when applying for jobs. Learn more and connect with Bryan at http://about.me/bryanchaney.