How is a new job with your company like a new car?
“Brand” matters.
The fact is, job seekers in Middle Tennessee treat new job searches the same way they treat major purchase decisions. They use digital tools to conduct extensive brand research before making a final choice.
As a Nashville hiring manager, this fact underscores your need to clearly define your employment brand to attract the best candidates. Among other things, proper employment branding includes:
- clarifying your corporate culture;
- properly positioning your company;
- setting expectations for performance;
- and helping candidates determine whether they’d be a good fit before they even apply with you.
After a tough couple of years of layoffs, “right-sizing,” and compensation reductions, many companies’ employment brands have taken a beating. Now that they’ve begun hiring again, they face the challenge of repairing the damage to strengthen their brands and compete in the new war for talent.
How has your company’s employment brand weathered the recession? What’s it really communicating to job seekers?
Building (or repairing) your employment brand starts with understanding your job seekers: what motivates them to apply with your company, what turns them off and how elements of your recruitment process influence their perceptions of your company. To hire the best candidates Middle Tennessee has to offer, be aware of these employment branding myths, from Personified’s 2012 “Applicant Experience Survey” of more than one million job seekers:
- Your top competitor for talent is in your industry. In the vast majority of cases, your top competition for candidates is actually in a different industry. So to build up your talent pool for hard-to-fill positions, expand your reach beyond your industry borders.
- You can wait to incorporate social media into your recruitment strategy. One in four job seekers expect companies like yours to have a presence on social media, and more than half become followers or fans because they would like to work for a company. If you haven’t already, master at least one social media platform, by using it to highlight benefits of working for your company, to include employee testimonials and to post available jobs.
- Failure to acknowledge an application won’t negatively impact your company’s image. 38 percent of survey respondents reported they have a worse opinion of employers who didn’t respond to their applications. So if your resources are limited and you’re flooded with applications, set-up an automatic reply outlining your hiring time frame. This way, every candidate will be aware of your timeline and not feel brushed-off.
Of course, Wood Personnel is always available to eliminate the time-consuming hassles and administrative burdens associated with making great hires. With over two decades of recruiting experience in Middle Tennessee, we can make your search for talent simpler, faster and more cost-effective. Contact Wood Personnel today to learn more.
