If you were to isolate the hardest part of recruiting, it would probably be difficult to choose to just one. You have to find the right talent, tell them about your business, sell them on the company\u2019s culture, and pitch them on the corporate vision. After all that, you have to just hope those candidates are interested in pursuing employment with your organization. Wouldn\u2019t it be a lot easier if candidates were already familiar with your company, creating less work for you and increasing the likelihood they’ll accept employment? Easier recruiting is possible if you\u2019ve spent time building your employer brand. Check out tips from HR and recruiting professionals on how to build and manage your company’s public perception so you know candidates will be on board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat do you do?\u201d is one of the first questions asked upon introduction in any social setting. The \u201cWhat do you do?\u201d moment is an excellent opportunity for an employee to get across the employer brand. To be successful employer brand ambassadors, make sure your staff is well-versed in the company\u2019s elevator pitch. \u201cGive them an \u2018elevator pitch\u2019 that they can use when asked \u2018What do you do?\u2019 that encompasses what they do and who they are doing it for,\u201d says Nov Omana, CEO of Collective HR Solutions<\/a> and previous IHRIM chair.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhen you have high turnover, that is a sign that something is awry in the organization,\u201d says Joey V. Price (@joeyvpriceHR<\/a>), CEO of Jumpstart:HR<\/a>. \u201cThe best thing that employers can do to improve upon their brand is to do their best to retain current employees and practice what they preach about culture and \u2018people are our first priority.\u2019” Given that 55 percent of job seekers are looking for opportunities in growth and development, Price advises employers to proactively map out employee development and succession plan strategies<\/a>. \u201cThe more specific employers can be with available opportunities, the better their brand will be perceived,\u201d says Kes Thygesen (@rolepoint<\/a>), Cofounder and Head of Product at RolePoint<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPeople take jobs (and stay in jobs) to work for great managers and collaborate with other great people. If you have great people with great stories, get them outside the walls of your company,\u201d says Dan Arkind, CEO of JobScore<\/a>. \u201cSet aside time and money for top performing employees to blog.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n Besides investing in top employees publicly blogging, create a reservoir for all employees to express their day-to-day activities via a social network. Let them post photos, videos, and messages to demonstrate how they live the brand, suggests Chris Grasso (@tmpww<\/a>), VP, Business Development for TMP<\/a>. The site could be internal facing with the option to graduate certain approved content to a publicly facing career page. The dynamic content will allow candidates to experience the brand and dramatically help with search engine optimization (SEO). Grasso offers another great suggestion of hosting a live chat and allowing employees to answer questions with prospective candidates.<\/p>\n While it\u2019s valuable to publish content about your company on your career site and blog, you have to leave the nest and go to industry communities, online and offline, where your potential candidates already are, says Sal Loukos (@sal_loukos<\/a>), Sourcing Manager at Seven Step RPO<\/a>.<\/p>\n Employees will participate in blogging, social media<\/a>, and online discussion boards primarily to build their own brand. Even if initially selfish, when the individual brand is in sync with the corporate mission, it benefits the company. \u201cA social business has alignment with select employees whose brand develops in the market. When such alignment exists, we see a halo effect,\u201d says Bernie Borges, who founded Find and Convert. One of the best examples, notes Borges, is Matt Cutts of Google. He has been built up as the face of Google to the SEO community. His blogging, community participation, and public speaking help build both his personal brand and Google\u2019s employer brand.<\/p>\n \u201cGet a sense of what the company’s brand currently is with the employees you already have,\u201d says Elene Cafasso (@Enerpace_Elene<\/a>), President of Enerpace<\/a>. \u201cStart by asking current employees what they would tell a friend about working at the firm.\u201d \u201cAssuming you like it, package it and start communicating it. If you don’t like it, go back to the employees and find out what the company would need to look like, to them, in order for them to describe your employer brand the way you want,\u201d says Cafasso.<\/p>\n “Take an integrated and coordinated approach to leveraging social media channels,\u201d says Larry Jacobson (@Vistaprint<\/a>), Director, Technology Talent Acquisition for Vistaprint<\/a>. \u201cFor example, if you’re launching recruitment videos, have everyone in the company do it on the same day via their Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn accounts. This will make a big splash and get more attention versus the information just slowly going out.”<\/p>\n Photos are an amazing branding opportunity because they drive high levels of traffic and interaction. They\u2019re a social engagement powerhouse. Facebook posts that include an album or picture increase engagement by an average of 180-120 percent, respectively. Pinterest, the fastest growing social network in history, is second only to Facebook in driving referral traffic. Evan Lesser (@clearancejobs<\/a>), Managing Director of ClearanceJobs.com<\/a> is bullish on Pinterest. He recommends creating a company Pinterest space and posting photos of your company products, workplace, awards, accolades, and company events.<\/p>\n When is the last time you looked at your company\u2019s profile on all the job boards and social networks? Can\u2019t remember? Chances are it sucks, says Jeremy Langhans, Global Brand and Talent Acquisition for Expedia,<\/a> who believes that updating your profile page is the easiest and fastest thing you can do to improve your employer brand. Don\u2019t know if your page needs updating? Ask yourself, \u201cHow long can you spend reading through it before you become bored,\u201d says Rick Barfoot (@rjbarfoo<\/a>), Recruiting Technology Consultant. \u201cIf it doesn’t remind you why you\u2019re excited about working for your employer, chances are it’s not going to do that for top talent and passive candidates.\u201d \u201cQuit talking about doing it and running it through HR a million times. Just go fix it up,\u201d says Langhans. \u201cCandidates that you want to hire are checking it out. If you don\u2019t fix it, they\u2019re going to pick a company that did fix it. Also, be transparent. You don\u2019t want a situation of them saying, \u2018That\u2019s not the company I saw on the website.\u2019 You\u2019re not going to get conversions.\u201d<\/p>\n Contrary to a misled popular opinion, prospective candidates don\u2019t wait to get home to check out new job opportunities. The most popular time to search for jobs is between 11am and 2pm on a Monday, which means they\u2019re looking for jobs at work. And since most users realize their computer use is moderated, they do those searches on their mobile phone. Sadly, almost 90 percent of the Fortune 500 have yet to optimize their career sites for a mobile web browser. \u201cMore than half of social interaction is via smartphone. The return on investment from social recruiting can be doubled if the brand supports mobile,\u201d says David Martin, Mobile Evangelist at PocketRecruit.com. \u201cConsider the relationship damage and perception impact when a potential candidate taps a call to action from Twitter on their mobile to be shown a desktop site that they cannot complete on their mobile.\u201d<\/p>\n Ultimately, you want employees to be so excited about their work that they\u2019re eager and happy to express those stories in open social spaces. That doesn\u2019t always come right away, so you sometimes have to juice participation. Here are some suggested engagement techniques\/games from Gyutae Park (@MoneyCrashers<\/a>), Partner at Money Crashers<\/a>, and Dan Curtin (@dcurtin10<\/a>), VP of Emerging Affairs at PIHRA<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThe purpose of these games is you want your readers and employees to feel engaged and empowered enough to tell their friends,\u201d says Park of Money Crashers.<\/p>\n \u201cNo other medium in the world combines culture, message, and mission in a \u2018show, don\u2019t tell\u2019 fashion as well as video does,\u201d says Yazad Dalal, VP of Global for TMP. \u201cHR needs to take a cue from MTV \u2013 global music brands are able to present a lifestyle, attitude, success, personality, and message through a three-minute bonanza of sound and light. There is no reason employers can\u2019t do the same thing.\u201d Suzanne Bates (@CEOCoachBates<\/a>), CEO of Bates Communications suggests three different video techniques for building employer brand:<\/p>\n \u201cNothing can tear down an employment brand faster than a poor candidate experience,\u201d says Ben Gotkin (@bengotkin<\/a>), Principal Consultant for Recruiting Toolbox<\/a>. \u201cA world-class candidate experience will do as much if not more to benefit your employment brand as anything that you would ever do creatively with collateral, your career website, or with social media.\u201d For more on how poor candidate experience is now and how we can improve it, see our interviews with Gerry Crispin (@gerrycrispin<\/a>), one of the founders of The Candidate Experience Awards.<\/p>\n \u201cFocus on delivering relevant, valuable content to distinct talent populations that provides a true transparent look inside the organization and lets talent easily figure out how they can contribute to the future success of the organization,\u201d says Master Burnett (@MasterBurnett<\/a>), Director of Strategy for BraveNewTalent. \u201cOrganizations go too far in trying to make the organization seem perfect,\u201d says Burnett. \u201cTalented professionals that are motivated to contribute to a greater success can’t easily see themselves making an impact in a perfect environment. They need to know what isn’t working, or what solution has not yet been figured out so they can realize \u2018that’s where I can apply myself.\u2019”<\/p>\nTIP 2: Focus on retaining current employees<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
TIP 3: Promote the stories of your top employees<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
TIP 4: Create a space for all employees to express work life; day-to-day and in real time<\/strong><\/h3>\n
TIP 5: Encourage \u201cemployee ambassadorship\u201d through industry communities<\/strong><\/h3>\n
TIP 6: Employer brand is built on the brand of individual employees<\/strong><\/h3>\n
TIP 7: What are your employees currently saying?<\/strong><\/h3>\n
TIP 8: Coordinate content and social media efforts for maximum impact<\/strong><\/h3>\n
TIP 9: Use photos to promote your brand<\/strong><\/h3>\n
TIP 10: Fix your company\u2019s profiles on social sites<\/strong><\/h3>\n
TIP 11: Optimize your career page for mobile<\/strong><\/h3>\n
TIP 12: Gamify employee participation<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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TIP 13: Use video to \u201cshow, don\u2019t tell\u201d the employee story<\/strong><\/h3>\n
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TIP 14: Focus on building a world-class candidate experience<\/strong><\/h3>\n
TIP 15: Provide a transparent and imperfect view inside the organization<\/strong><\/h3>\n
TIP 16: Own a space of interest to candidates<\/strong><\/h3>\n