Recruitment branding is part of what attracts the right talent.
Recruitment branding is now key
Wikipedia says:
“Employer brand is the term commonly used to describe an organization’s reputation as an employer, and its value proposition to its employees, as opposed to its more general corporate brand reputation and value proposition to customers.”
Distill that long sentence and you realise that as an employer, your company has yet another brand and image to manage. What do people think when they see your logo and are discussing working for you? That’s recruitment branding, often also called employer branding.
HR and Marketing need to sit together
Wow, you’re a recruitment professional and now you have to be a marketing expert as well? Not really, just simply make sure you learn from your marketing division and colleagues. Every month, make sure that you interact with marketing to see that the job adverts you publish and candidate interactions you have with job seekers are according to what you’d like people from the outside to see as your recruitment branding.
What message do you portray?
Putting you best foot forward as a company to work for is also not just about what you write in job advertisements, but is something you do every single day. Anyone leaving your firm with a poor impression will spread that just as much as, if not more than, someone who had a great time. Everything your company does, all the meetings, the people you hire collectively, the way you operate, all contribute to the environment, atmosphere and general experience of working for your organisation.
So how can you as an HR and recruitment person affect that? You’re perfectly placed to do so. Do all those company initiatives now seem like something actually part of a bigger plan? They should. A company sponsored day away to get to know each other and plan for the next year is also adding to recruitment branding.
Make sure the recruitment branding message gets across
During your interview protocol, and even from the second a job seeker walks through your door, you have the opportunity to communicate what your company is like. For a potential employee, their senses are alert to picking up cues on what it would be like to work for you. Whether you hire them or not, they’ll still keep this impression. In fact, even in the way you display your requirements for your positions, they can see if you’re a serious employer who only accepts quality or not.
Imagine you have a candidate for an interview that you’re very excited about. The position is key, the line manager wants this person on board and it’s been a mission to find them and bring them in. You’ll pull out all the stops, won’t you? Well, now do that with every single interview. You’ll find that more candidates facing multiple offers choose your firm and those who don’t make the cut still see you as an employer of choice.
It’s one thing to have a great image for your products, but if you aren’t a wonderful company to work for, your products won’t have the best talent working on them and both these brands will fall. Part of a successful company is combining the efforts of the HR/recruitment and marketing divisions and understanding how to portray you organisation in the public eye when hiring.
