Build A Recruiter Brand
What Is A Recruiter Brand?
In short, a company’s Recruiter Brand is a statement or representation of what a company values internally. Just as it’s marketing or consumer brand is a statement of what it values externally. And while these two statements are often similar (or at least compatible) it’s not unusual for them to be unique as well.
Your company may be committed to an “environment that encourages open, free expression of ideas” like SAP. It may value “Opportunities to continuously learn. Supportive management. The chance to try out different roles.” like SalesForce. Or it may just love “Delivering happiness.” like Zappos.
Whatever your unique internal company values are, they are what make up your Recruiter Brand.
What’s Your Thing?
Just as your company’s consumer brand needs to differentiate itself from your competitors, your recruiter brand needs to do the same. Ask yourself, “What is our thing?” Your thing is what sets you apart from the other companies in your area who are trying to hire the same people.
- Are you the company that pays the most?
- Are you the place that cares more than anyone else?
- Do you have the most fun?
- Are you the most active in your community?
What makes you unique? The answer to that question is the beginning of recruiter branding.
How Do You Sell It?
When the founders of your company developed it’s first products or services, they had to answer this pivotal question. You can create the world’s greatest thing, but if no one ever hears about it, you won’t last long as a business. You have to sell it.
Recruiter branding is the same way. You have to sell it to potential employees. How will you do that? Social Media? Job Boards? Email Campaigns? Paid Ads? Odds are your recruiter branding campaign will involve a combination of many of these things.
Perhaps you’ll launch a YouTube Channel or a Podcast to talk about it. Maybe you’ll buy Facebook and Google ads. Whatever you choose, make sure it’s something you can do well and consistently. But above all, make sure it’s true!
There’s nothing more damaging to your company’s recruiting efforts than selling one thing and delivering another. I see it all the time. We think up really great sounding ideas in board rooms and then distill them into core values and guiding principles. Then we plaster them all over our websites, break rooms, and in every job ad only to see people leave after short tenures of employment, because the product didn’t match the pitch.
If the snazzy employer brand you’re selling isn’t what people experience from day to day working at your company, you’ll be constantly fighting turnover and trying to live down bad reviews online.
True employee stisfaction begins when the story matches the headline. They need to experience the company you ads are selling.
How Do You Build It Out?
Once you’ve determined what your internal values are and how you’re going to sell them, you need to build out the pieces of your campaign. This usually involves completing a lot of profiles on various platforms. Here are a few of the more important profiles you’ll need to build:
- Your Company Facebook Page
- Your Company’s Google My Business Listing
- Your Company LinkedIn Page
- Your Indeed Company Profile
- Your GlassDoor Company Profile
- Any Profiles Your Company Has On Sites In Your Industry
There are more depending on your specific market, but these are some of the main sites that just about everyone uses.
The thing to remember is that this isn’t overly difficult. It’s mostly just filling out forms and answering questions. And if your branding campaign is solid, you should have all the information you need to build these profiles in short order.
You will need things like logos, specific colors (if applicable), profile images, cover images, and text for completing forms. Ideally, you should be able to get most of what you need from your company’s Careers or About Us page on your website.
The most important thing about building out your recruiter brand is to be thorough. If there’s a place to put something, put something there. The more thorough you are, the more the platform will love you.
How Do You Grow It?
Now that you’ve built out all of your various profiles, it’s time to grow the audience that looks at them. The easiest way to grow your recruiter brand is to advertise your jobs aggressively. Many of the job seekers who see your ads will visit your company page to learn more about your recruiter brand.
Indeed surveyed 750 jobs seekers and 67% of them said that employer reviews from company pages influenced their decision to or not to apply. Also, a study taken from Indeed data worldwide shows that job seekers who visit your well-built company page are 2.5 times more likely to apply to your job.
This means that simply running jobs ads can be an extremely effective way to build your recruiter brand.
In addition to advertising your jobs on Indeed, publish them on your company website. Consider listing them on your company Facebook and LinkedIn pages as well as your Google My Business Listing. Choose an ATS (like JazzHR) that broadcasts your jobs to a syndicated list of job boards all over the internet. The more places you advertise, the more likely people are to see and recognize your recruiter brand.
How Do You Protect It?
The final piece of the recruiter brand building process is to protect it. Let’s face it, your company has a ton of resources invested in this brand and its only as strong as you keep it. Disgruntled employees are a fact of life and they will hit you with bad reviews from time to time.
You need to have a system in place to regularly solicit positive reviews from your satisfied team members. Consistent positive feedback will be your strongest defence against angry former hires with an axe to grind.
Another way to protect your recruiter brand is to regularly add to it. Produce new content that highlights your brand at least once per quarter. Publish interviews with happy employees, write articles about how your brand has made a difference in the lives of your staff or in your community. Even just posting new photos from time to time will make a difference. Anything you can do to continually tout the importance and significance of your brand will help keep it strong.
And finally, celebrate, celebrate, celebrate! When someone gets a promotion, celebrate it. When your company wins an award, celebrate it! When the little league team your company sponsors wins a tournament, celebrate it! When anyone levels up in life for any reason, celebrate it! If you want your people to celebrate your company, create a culture of celebration. If celebrating is something that your whole team does all the time, it will be easy for them to celebrate with positive reviews when you need them. And they’ll naturally celebrate each other which only makes everyone happier.
Well, there you go. That’s how you build a Recruiter Brand for your company. If you would like help building your brand, Contact Us here at HireBoom! We do this all the time and we would love to help you build, grow, and protect your precious Recruiter Brand.