By Lauren Mackelden, Features Editor, Onrec Magazine
Achieving the employer brand that's right for you, and being consistent with it is more important than ever before. As online recruitment expands and diversifies into a myriad of media, this needs careful consideration. Onrec asked experts in this field for their advice and examples of success.
Branding is vital, you want to stand out in the sea of grey, declares Chauncey Archer, Managing Partner of sticky IT. "A brand helps you do that by way of consistency. Every channel, medium, and component should reflect the same look and messaging for a feel of continuity. Your brand should convey your difference; it should depict the feel and energy of your company." According to Archer, a client once shared that their rebrand was comparable to one month’s worth of travel costs in client site visits. One month of travel compared to the average 3-5 year lifecycle of a new website - it really puts it in perspective!
Chauncey Archer cites gpac, based in Sioux Falls, the USA, as a great example. Formerly 'Management Recruiters of Sioux Falls', this firm wanted to breathe new life into their company and reinvent themselves. They sought a more youthful, edgy and bold look that reflected their confidence and down-to-earth nature. Archer says: "We helped them with some naming exercises to help them derive their name – gpac. From there, we helped build their brand piece by piece. We started with a logo, then website, and then on to branded collateral and materials. We even worked all the way to tradeshow marketing and a mobile website. Every medium you see them in is consistent- from the desktop site to the mobile web, to social media, to job boards like Monster – you’ll see a consistent look and feel and a unified message in every application."
Kirstie Kelly from LaunchPad Recruits and Barnaby Cook at Casual Films provide insight into how your company can show itself to its best advantage and attract candidates. "With a limited talent pool of skilled candidates available in the marketplace, employers should take a moment to stand back and look at how they appear from the outside. An 'employer brand' is the image an organisation presents to its employees and potential candidates. It's the 'flawsom' view of your business - demonstrating why you're awesome, but showing all the flaws! Or rather, the reality behind working for you. It is more than just a logo. It should help to reinforce why high performing, talented people would want to join – and stay with – an organisation. Aside from the usual salary and location benefits, companies need to consider what else gives them a competitive edge to their 'offer' over the competition. For example; articulation of the culture, career development paths and training opportunities, incentive schemes, work life balance/flexible opportunities, onsite benefits and travel opportunities. Companies should update marketing materials and digital presence ... be proud and show it!
They advise that you carefully choose a recruitment partner that fully understands and embraces your employer brand to attract the best talent for the business. "Employers have increasingly been pressurised into automating their recruitment process and balancing this with the need to create a compelling candidate experience. Through a variety of online channels, employers are able to engage sooner with potential candidates and demonstrate they are the employer of choice for high performing talent. In very simple terms, increased employer brand awareness is more possible online, simply because there's the opportunity to better track traffic, visitors, clicks, or likes."
Kelly and Cook suggest video as it offers an employer the chance to bring their employer brand to life. They believe: "Video is much more interactive, and by nature, shareable than text - and does better online as a result. Online recruitment can quickly reach larger audiences, as a 'like' or 'share' quickly transcends friendship networks. Recruiting online also creates much more engagement than offline. After the initial engagement, a candidate may then share the job, or choose to engage further by visiting your website. There are very quick routes and options to engagement with your brand via a simple click, rather than relying on the candidate to visit your site once seeing a print ad. And the use of video has now filtered through to the selection stage, creating greater engagement for candidates whilst supporting better and faster hiring decisions for employers." As Kelly and Cook point out, a whole professional services sector has sprung up to provide candidates with the ultimate polished CV, but an employer can spends hours sifting through identikit applications that on paper seem perfect, yet in person the applicant can be far from ideal.
Case study: TV ads by TAQA, a global energy company
Provided by Kirstie Kelly from LaunchPad Recruits and Barnaby Cook at Casual Films
Recruitment television commercials used to be something you would see only from the UK’s defence sector. Last December saw TAQA, the global energy company, change that with its employer brand film - originally launched on the TAQA website just before Christmas – appearing on Christmas Day television. It wasn’t long ago that recruitment advertising was limited to black and white print ads in the weekly jobs supplement, indeed ‘advertising’ in the most basic sense. Whilst consumer marketing bulldozed their way into new media available online, recruitment advertising remained largely in the dark ages only until very recently.
We’ve clearly seen the recruitment industry embracing the online space, slowly but surely, first with the development of job boards, banner adverts and more recently – better optimised websites with rich media content and new ways of engaging the audiences. But finally, we hope, the penny has dropped: Your recruitment communications – which lead to the people you attract and ultimately those employees who make your business what it is – are just as important as your customer communications.
TAQA, a fairly new Abu Dhabi business with a foothold in Aberdeen, wanted to raise its profile and start competing for Talent amongst some of the world’s oil & gas giants. As the sector is highly competitive for talent – particularly in specialist roles, TAQA wanted to raise itself above the parapet and take its recruitment communications to the consumer front line by launching its own recruitment-focused brand film for both online and broadcast, they chose to launch an online video for its many benefits - including easy sharing, website SEO, and the opportunity to simultaneously give so many messages in look, feel and tone.
It’s an exciting step for both the recruitment industry, and oil/gas sector particularly – it's very early to give results, but it is hoped that it will give the fairly young company a fantastic boost in brand awareness.
Case Study - using Video Interviewing to recruit- Chiquitos Restaurant Group
Provided by Kirstie Kelly from LaunchPad Recruits and Barnaby Cook at Casual Films
The Problem: Finding great talent with branded restaurant experience can be a real challenge, especially when it is out of London and the primary cities. With a new opportunity for a role at Chiquito’s Swindon restaurant, it was essential to find an individual with the capacity and expertise to lead a sparkling team.
The Solution: Candidates view the vacancy through the TRG site from their regular adverts with caterer.com, before applying through their PeopleBank ATS system.
“With this particular role, we were able to include a potential candidate who was in post in Dubai. From reviewing his video interview, we could immediately see that this could be a really exciting fit for our business” – says Marco, Head of Recruitment for TRG, “we were able to confidently continue through the recruitment process, with a face to face meeting whilst I was in Dubai - this ensured that the candidate could make the right decision whilst we were reassured that he would be right for the business.
Un-phased by the experience of being captured on video, Dave, now restaurant manager of Chiquito's, Swindon appreciated the efforts the business had taken to encourage him to apply for a role. “I’ve been through a number of recruitment processes where it’s exhausting to complete all the paperwork. This was quick, slick and a great experience."
