What Is Employment Branding and How Can You Use It To Recruit Top Talent?

If you’re hiring right now and finding it difficult to attract great employees (or any employees, for that matter!), you’re not alone.

In a job market where there are two jobs for every applicant and a record high number of people abandoning their jobs, employers everywhere are in a fight to secure and keep employees. In such a competitive environment, how do you convince top talent to join your team?

One often overlooked answer to this dilemma is employment branding.

If your response to that statement is, “Ok, you’ve got my attention, but what is employment branding exactly?”, you’ve come to the right place. Read on to learn more about employment branding, how to build your brand, and how to use it to recruit and retain top talent.

What Is Employment Branding?

When you hear the word “brand”, you likely think about the way your company is perceived by consumers. But employment branding is a little different.

While a company’s overall branding focuses more on the customer experience, employment branding focuses on the employee experience. 

It answers the question, “Why is your company a great place to work?”

Employment branding is a strategy to promote your company as a desirable place to work; a way to shape how potential employees, current employees, investors, and the general public see you as an employer. It offers an inside perspective—a glimpse of what it’s like to be a part of your organization.

Here’s an example from a home healthcare company we worked with:

• Their overall branding talks about serving their communities and empowering people.

• Their employment branding utilizes the slogan “Good Is What We Do”, and all of their recruiting materials are focused on the concept that their employees love working there because they are able to “do good” through their work.

Both incorporate the company’s values, but each has a different focus.

Determining Your Employment Brand

Now that you understand what employment branding is, the next step is to determine what your company’s employment brand is. 

There are several steps involved in determining your employment brand, but the process can be boiled down to three key elements:

1. Review what your employment brand looks like externally. This includes reviews on employment sites like Indeed and Glassdoor, and to some extent client reviews on Google or other industry-specific platforms. 

2. Internally, review your core company values, mission, and culture. At a leadership level, take a hard look at your stated values to ensure that they really align with the values your company is living out. You should be able to give examples of those values in action. If you can’t, you may need to rethink what your core values are!

3. Ask your employees about their experience with your company. This is the most important component of understanding your employment brand. While your core values and mission play a part, your employment brand is ultimately determined by your employees. What your leadership thinks your brand is may not really be your brand: you need to find out why the majority of your employees say they appreciate working for your organization. 

The goal of these conversations is to boil down the collective thoughts of the organization into a brand and its elements. Look for themes in these conversations: examples of how the company lives its values, what your employees like about working there, and how your employees experience your company on a day-to-day basis.

From there, you’ll have the information you need to create a short statement or slogan (3-5 words that encapsulate your brand) to use and expand on in your advertising and job postings.

Here are a few examples of companies that are doing a great job with their employment branding:

• Big companies (with big budgets) are good resources to give you an idea of what resonates with you for your own employment branding. Best Buy’s career site is exceptional, as is Mayo Clinic’s. What works for these sites is that they use a tagline (Best Buy’s is “Tomorrow Works Here”, Mayo’s is “Life-Changing Careers”), and everything else supports that premise.

• HealthStar, a home health care company we worked with, did an amazing job with their employment brand on their career page. Check it out here.

• We are big fans of using recruitment videos to communicate your employment brand. Here are a couple of our favorites:

  • “Why I love Dropbox”   

  • New Seasons Market Comment Card confessional 

Using Your Employment Branding to Attract Top Talent

To use your employment branding well, you need to use that messaging across all of your recruiting materials and activities. 

This means that the reasons why your company is a great place to work—the key messaging that you developed in the employment branding process—needs to be weaved into:

• The career page on your website.

• Your recruitment advertising. Your job ads should NOT consist only of a job description! They should communicate why your company is a great place to work.

• The subject of a recruitment video. We think this is the BEST way to communicate your employment brand!

• Messaging pushed out to the team doing interviews. It should be built into some of the questions asked of job candidates. 

The Role of Reviews in the Recruitment Process

One aspect of employment branding that many companies overlook is online reviews. And that’s a mistake—statistics state that up to 86% of job seekers view employer and company reviews and ratings when deciding whether or not to apply for a job!

Companies have lost out on great candidates because of negative, missing, or poorly managed online reviews. Plus, when potential candidates apply for a job on sites like Indeed or Glassdoor, the star rating of a company is listed as part of the job posting. Poor ratings will scare away top talent.

Improve your online reviews by doing the following:

• Build your company page at Indeed and/or Glassdoor and strategically ask key employees to write reviews on those sites. Make sure to stagger these reviews so you don’t end up with 6 AMAZING reviews in one day!

• Ask happy customers to write reviews on Google or whichever review site is most important to your company.

• Manage bad reviews! No one likes to receive a negative review, but it happens. Respond graciously to bad reviews, thanking the reviewer for their feedback and asking to connect with them offline to address their experience further. This will show that you care about the kind of experience your employees and customers have with your company.

An example of this last point from one of our past clients:

We once worked with a client who had horrible Google reviews. This client managed coin operated machines, and had dozens and dozens of online reviews from people who were angry because the machines ate their quarters. This company was hiring for a senior accounting role—a position that had nothing to do with the faulty machines—and candidate after candidate declined the role because of those negative online reviews! 

The kicker was that the company did not respond to the negative reviews. It would have been a completely different story had someone on their team taken ownership of the issue and responded online that they were committed to resolving the issue with their customers. 

Their lack of response cost them valuable employees.

Employee Retention: Keeping Your Employment Brand Front and Center 

Your employment branding doesn’t stop once you’ve hired someone. Done well, employment branding addresses both recruiting and retention. It’s a tool you can use to both attract candidates and improve employee engagement. 

Companies that do a great job with this push their employment brand messaging out to their existing employees:

• They include spotlights of employees living the brand in their newsletters or company communications. 

• They produce videos with employees talking about the employment brand. 

• They post stories on Facebook or Indeed of company outings or community service that aligns with the brand.

• They include themes of the employment brand in company meetings and reward employees that live by the brand.

Red Seat Can Help You Build Your Employment Branding

If your company needs help determining its employment brand, we have you covered. At Red Seat, we’ve assisted many clients in the process of distilling their company values, mission, and culture down into concise language that communicates who they are and what it’s like to work for them.

This is just one of the many recruiting and hiring services we offer. 

Learn more about Red Seat’s Retained Search, Fractional Recruiting, and other services by browsing our website, and don’t hesitate to contact us to discuss your hiring needs.

Recruit for Diversity - Part II - Messaging

Red Seat’s Part I segment on recruiting for diversity recommended that making diversity a top priority is the first critical step in making a diverse hire.  Making diversity a top hiring priority and focusing recruitment efforts on diverse candidates will have a direct influence on all activities of the recruitment process.  In this segment, we’ll talk about recruitment messaging and how a focus on diversity changes recruitment and employment branding messaging, why this is important, and the impact of diversity-specific messaging. 

Let’s say you want to hire someone that is detailed oriented and accurate.  Would you be more likely to attract detailed and accurate individuals if your messaging communicated that detail and accuracy were really important qualities that would lead to success in the job?  Would you encourage individuals that thrived in detail and accuracy to apply to the position?  This seems simplistic but explicitly stating what you seek and encouraging individuals to apply to your open positions that have the characteristics you are looking for is often missed in many job ads. 

Translating this concept to diversity hiring, the idea of explicitly stating your need, AND asking for the types of applicants you seek for the position is paramount.  For example, let’s say that you want to encourage BIPOC candidates to apply.  Why not state the need: “Our company is committed to a diverse and multi-cultural workforce that represents the community where we live, and we seek BIPOC and other culturally diverse candidates to apply to this position.”  The message is clear here that the hiring company recognizes the need for a diverse workforce and is welcoming to wide a range of applicants.

Help Wanted advertising messaging is only a part of a comprehensive messaging strategy to encourage diverse candidates to apply.  Companies that are leaders in diversity hiring include diversity in their Employment Branding messaging and often have fully built-out recruitment websites where diversity is highlighted throughout the messaging.  Check out Best Buy’s career page, https://www.bestbuy-jobs.com/diversity/, or Medtronic’s:  https://www.medtronic.com/us-en/about/careers.html  The common theme on these two career sites is that diversity is front and center.  Employment Branding tells the story of why employees at a company are happy there and in turn, shows prospective employees what to expect working at the company. 

Another way organizations demonstrate their commitment to diversity is through social network messaging.  Images of team members volunteering in the community, employees celebrating promotions or a birthday, and pictures of people working together.  These visual stories of a company communicate to prospective and current employees what the company is about, and specific to diversity hiring, who makes up the team.  Planning for social media that expands your diversity hiring objective by thoughtfully including diverse voices and images will positively impact prospective diverse employees that search out your messaging. 

Making the decision to prioritize diversity in your hiring efforts and creating messaging that spans the recruitment process are simple steps in the complex landscape of pursuing a diverse workforce.  In our next installment, we’ll tackle how to avoid bias in hiring by taking a look at job descriptions, resumes and interviews. 

Recruit for Diversity - The First Steps

Recruit for Diversity – Part I // The First Steps 

If you have decided that now is the time to take Diversity Recruiting seriously, your next question may be, “Where do I start?”

What we have learned working with clients on diversity hires is that the first steps are defining what diversity means for your company and then making the diversity you seek a primary objective for the position. 

The benefit, of course, about being clear of your hiring goal, is that once you set a goal in place, all following actions will have that end-goal in mind.  From our 20+ years of recruiting experience, we know that when a client chooses diversity as a key factor in a hire this decision results in a much more diverse pool of candidates, and is exponentially more likely to result in a diverse hire. 

Start with your vision:  Like any goal-setting, visualizing your end-goal solidifies the desired outcome.  Visioning a diversity hire is essential and that process starts with individual reflection and engagement with your team to define what diversity represents to you and your company, and what outcomes you hope for through building a more diverse workplace. 

Questions you can ask yourself and your team may include:

1. What does a diverse hire look like for your company? 

We have found that diversity is interpreted differently by the companies we work with.  Because diversity is so broad, we recommend focusing your recruiting efforts on a few diversity groups that would start the change for your company.  Being clear about what diversity means to you is critical to creating a more diverse workplace.   You might be thinking that with current events that it is time to take seriously racial diversity and creating teams with the goal of attracting and hiring BIPOC employees.  In addition to racial diversity we have worked with companies interested in attracting and recruiting other diverse or protected class candidates such as LGBTQIA, a female leader for a male dominated management team, age diversity, religious diversity, country of origin or inclusion of handicapped applicants.  

2. What is your vision for a more diverse workforce? 

How does a more diverse workplace improve your mission and culture?  What is your motivation for a more diverse workforce?  Understanding the reasons and aspirations behind your desire for a more diverse workforce will help solidify your communications internally and externally about the hires you want to make. 

It is important to note, and hopefully goes without saying, that choosing to spend time reaching out to and attracting one or more groups of diverse candidates does not diminish your organization’s obligations to treat all candidates equally.  The purpose of defining an approach to reach out to underrepresented candidates is that this will translate into a strategy that will help you uncover qualified individuals that also meet your desire for a more diverse workplace.

We hope you agree that defining diversity for your organization and clarifying your vision for a more diverse workplace are tasks that are time well spent in planning for your future recruitment plans. 

We hope you stay tuned as we have a multi-part diversity hiring series planned to provide quick and actionable tips for diversity recruiting.  Our next installment will help you with putting your vision in action with solid advice on how to attract diversity candidates to an open position.  We hope this series sparks innovation for your workplace recruiting and hiring efforts. 

Recruitment and Hiring Process Consulting

Looking for a project that will help move your business forward when business gets going again? I found 9 Critical Things To Do When Business is Slow an excellent overview of important tasks to work on. This is also a great time to review and update your Hiring, Recruiting & Onboarding Process to help you secure future talent.

A documented and user-friendly Hiring, Recruiting and Onboarding process drives qualified candidates to your company, streamlines tasks, serves as a road map for defining and identifying top performers, provides candidates equal opportunity and ensures adherence to legal practices.  

Red Seat offers Hiring Process Consulting and we get started by taking thorough stock of your current processes, and then prioritize and complete key areas for improvement. Here are the topics we review and consult on:

Employment Branding – Are you communicating with prospective employees that your company is a great place to work? We start with an overview of your career page, online reviews, and social media. Our recommendations for Employment Branding will vary based on the needs of your organization. We can assist in implementing a full Employment Branding Strategy, or work with you to develop a positive social media presence, or develop a process for obtaining and responding to Employee Reviews at Indeed.com and Glassdoor.  

Job Descriptions – Do you have up-to-date job descriptions? Do they accurately describe the duties and deliverables of the positions at your company?  Red Seat’s review of Job Descriptions ensures that position descriptions are accurate in describing the functions and competencies required for success on the job. 

Help Wanted Ads – When you post openings, do you receive quality resumes? Where are you posting your open positions? Are your job postings consistent across multiple departments in your organization? Red Seat reviews your current ad postings and if needed, will develop templates that address key information that drives response to job ads and we’ll provide a list of sites to post openings for targeted and qualified resume traffic.  

Recruitment – How is your company recruiting for key positions? Red Seat reviews your recruiting process and will bring to the table ideas of how and where you can find and reach out to passive candidates that possess the skills your company seeks.

Application Process – How do candidates apply to your company? What systems do you have in place to track and communicate with candidates once they have applied? We have found that the application process and how companies track candidates is often one of the biggest roadblocks to successful hiring. Whether candidates abandon a lengthy application process, or there is not a system in place to communicate with and track applicants, this seemly minor aspect of the hiring process often has room for improvement with the opportunity for dramatic results in candidate traffic and engagement.

Interview Process - Red Seat is an advocate of a structured interview process. Our hiring success rate and research proves that a structured approach to hiring results in better hires. Using a structured process requires a thorough understanding of the positions your company hires and the core competencies required for the positions.  We will review your hiring process and assist with developing and implementing a structured interview process that increases the likelihood of successful hires.

Pre-employment Testing – Assessments are an excellent tool in the hiring process, providing objective information to assist in decision making. We will review your current assessment tools and compare their relationship to the positions you hire and provide alternatives if there are needs or gaps not addressed by your current assessments.

Documents – We recommend an annual review of hiring documents such as employment applications, release forms, job offers, and employment contracts/non-competes/non-disclosure agreements. Our recommendations typically include having documents reviewed and/or updated by a skilled employment law attorney.  

Training & Onboarding – A successful new hire is provided the training and tools to do the job.  In addition to training, studies show when employees experience a great onboarding process that includes celebration and meaningful connections with co-workers, management and the executive team the added effort results in increased productivity and longevity.  After reviewing your current process, Red Seat will offer solutions to any roadblocks experienced or offer tools to increase engagement and job satisfaction.

Interested in taking on a taking a deep dive into how you hire?  We’d be delighted to talk with you about how to get started.  Contact us at (952)-893-0020 or talley@redseat.com for more information. 

Hiring? How to conduct a great phone screen (free offer)

At Red Seat, we do phone interviews.  Are we counting?  No, but we conduct thousands a year.  And with thousands of phone screening interviews under our belt, we have learned how best to prepare for a phone interview, what questions to ask and how to wrap up a call that could go on for hours.  

If you are hiring during this time of social distancing, then you are completing interviews by phone or video.  Like in-person interviews, the key to the success of a phone/video interview is planning. 

So here is our offer: If you are interviewing and want an expert to weigh in on how to make the most out of your interviews, Red Seat is offering a Free 30 Minute Consultation.  We will help you plan a high-quality phone interview that ensures you are prepared for the conversation.  A well-composed phone interview includes sharing important information about your company and the open position, along with targeted interview questions to help you decide which candidates to move forward to the next step of the hiring process.        

We will cover:

·         Deciding between a phone interview and a video call

·         How to structure a phone interview for time efficiency

·         Develop phone interview questions specific to your current opening to uncover skills, behaviors, and characteristics essential to a top performer

·         How to best contact and confirm phone/video meetings to reduce no-shows

·         How to wrap up a phone/video interview

This Free Consultation is offered through the lockdown.  The catch? No catch.  We are all in this together.  Hoping we stay safe and healthy. 

Set a Calendly appointment:  30 Minute Strategy Session - Phone Interviews Or contact me directly:  Talley Flora // talley@redseat.com // 952-893-0020

Job Search - Free 30 minute consultation

At Red Seat we help companies hire.  We write ads, receive and scrutinize resumes, scour the internet & databases for prospective candidates and create and complete interviews.  All this to uncover candidates that have the skills and experience our clients seek.  

Our work, recruiting for our clients’ specific openings, has translated well to assisting job seekers in their job search.  While we don’t market this service (at least not yet), I have conducted 100s of phone calls with friends, friends of friends and friends of clients and have nearly perfected a 30-minute speed version to assist in job search. 

It has been difficult to hear of the many layoffs or furloughs and to pay it forward, I am offering a free 30-minute job search consultation. 

Here is what we’ll cover:

·         The type of position you seek

·         Your resume and LinkedIn profile

·         Your go-to-market plan for your job search

·         Concerns you have about your search

My job on the call is to:

·         Provide you resources & ideas how to efficiently approach your search

·         Suggest changes you may want to consider on your resume and/or LinkedIn profile

·         Address and strategize with you how to overcome objections/concerns during your search 

This Free Consultation is offered on a first come, first service and I am accepting up to 5 requests a week through the month of April.  The catch? No catch.  We are all in this together.  Hoping we stay safe and healthy. 

Set a Calendly appointment:  https://calendly.com/talleyflora/30min-1

Or contact me directly:  Talley Flora // talley@redseat.com // 952-893-0020

Are the hiring decision makers at your company on the same page?

Do the hiring decision makers agree?

Red Seat has helped small businesses hire thousands of employees in our 20 years in business.  We have found time and again that it is critically important that all key decision makers are in agreement on the position BEFORE starting to hire.

Decision makers need to be in agreement on multiple attributes of the role such as duties and objectives, the targeted background and education of the prospective new employee, decision-making accountability in the job, the reporting structure, salary/bonus/perks and key personality characteristics. 

We recently worked with a client on a sales position.  The company’s goal was to hire a strong sales hunter, and their long-range plan was to groom the salesperson into a Sales Manager.  As we dug into the criteria and skill set the hiring company sought in their new employee, we found there were different viewpoints among the key decision makers about whether they wanted an employee to sell or someone to manage the team.  It was key to a successful hire to engage the leaders and decision makers in defining their needs and ensuring alignment across the leadership team.  When company leaders are not on the same page regarding the qualities and qualifications they seek, it is nearly impossible to agree on a candidate. 

As important as gaining agreement among the decision makers in the hiring process, is gaining buy-in from key team members.  This is a delicate undertaking, particularly in smaller companies where employees work closely with one another.  Team members appreciate the opportunity to interview and approve a new hire, and this meeting is also a selling point to new hires:  Team members can share with the prospect what they like about working for the company, and the interviewee can ask questions about the culture and position.  

As you and your company embark on finding a new employee, make sure to gain agreement across the leadership and co-working teams to ensure a shared vision on the new hire. 

Minnesota Made podcast on hiring and recruiting

I was thrilled to join Minnesota Made for a recruiting and hiring podcast. Sharon Asmus, CEO of TPI Custom Solutions and Kyle Scott, CEO of Northwing Digital were also part of the recording and collectively we presented some great ideas!

Find links to the podcast here: https://www.sppa.com/saint-paul-made/podcast/new-world-of-hr-recruiting

Help Wanted Ad Tip: Promote Your Company

Help Wanted Ad Tip:  Promote Your Company

Presenting your company as a great place to work is a key component in effective recruitment advertising.  Research shows that more than 90% of candidates seek out at least one resource to evaluate an employer’s brand before applying.

Many organizations miss the opportunity to promote their company in their job ads.  Instead they simply provide a list of duties/list of qualifications, or worse, a job description that is not easy or interesting to read.  Help wanted ads are an opportunity to spotlight what is great about working for your business and highlight key items candidates seek when they make a job move such as values that mirror their own, the company’s community involvement and opportunity for growth and development.

Take a look at your recruitment advertising and ask yourself if you have provided enough information to attract a prospective job seeker to your company.  Would you be interested in applying to the job you have posted? Would you be more interested if the advertisement included more about the company, what they stand for and why their employees love working there?  

As important as providing the readers detail about the company and environment, it is important to consider the tone of the recruitment ad.   As an extreme example, I saw in an ad recently had a tone bordering on hostile.  Actual quotes from the job ad include: “If that does not work with you, don't apply.” And “Answer the questionnaire or you will not be considered.”  My guess is that the company did not have many (if any) applicants to consider!  People want to work for an organization that treats their employees with respect and it is important that recruitment advertising sets both an accurate tone for the company and presents the company as inviting to the job seeker.

When writing your job ad, write it with the intent of encouraging candidates to apply to the position.  The applicant you seek should want to come to work for your business!  While you are busy making sure you accurately detail every duty and requirement in the ads you post, remember that those details are important as long as the ad also communicates that your company is a place where people want to work. 

Is your company a great place to work?

Employment Branding, or presenting your company as a great place to work, is an essential element of attracting and recruiting top employees.

Employment Branding - position your company as an Employer of Choice

It is more important than ever in today’s competitive hiring climate to position your company as an Employer of Choice. Knowing your company’s employment brand and making a concerted effort to be a top employer are proven to result in positive outcomes with recruiting,  retention and productivity.

To be an Employer of Choice it is crucial to understand what you do well and to develop a plan for areas that you want to improve.  To start, do company leaders and employees have a similar view of your organization’s employment brand or mission, values and culture?  Are there common themes as to why your company is a great place to work?  Are there areas that you could do better?

As you define your company’s employment brand and work towards being viewed as a top employer, here are some examples of ways that companies differentiate themselves:

1.       Strong Mission.   Why are you in business? What does your company make, do or sell that helps others?  For examples of robust mission statements, look to Non-Profit organizations.  They do this really well! 

2.       A Great Story.   We have a client that has a great story of how their founder, 100+ years ago, immigrated to the US and brought with him his prize possession, a printing press that he used to start his business.  This story has proved time again a key element in recruiting candidates.  What is your story? 

3.       Your Values.  Do you have examples of your values in action?  Company values are important but key to them being the cornerstone of what makes you great is being able to point to how they are lived inside the organization and community.

4.       Employee Support.  Components of employee support include solid onboarding, manager and supervisory training, accountability, and creating an environment of safety and respect. 

5.       Compensation + Benefits + Flexibility.  Does your company offer top pay?  Are your benefits comparable to or better than your competitors?  Are you able to provide flexible hours or remote working opportunities to employees?

Once you have identified the key elements of why your company is a great place to work, your next task is to communicate the message.  On your website, you could add written or video employee testimonials.  On social media, post employee outings or community participation.  In recruitment advertising, explain what your company does well and describe WHY the job seeker wants to work for you!

And don’t forget to sell your company in interviews.  We have a client that did an excellent job communicating why they were an awesome company in interviews.  The key to the communication was including employees in the interviews who were authentic about their enthusiasm for the company and who reinforced each other in their talking points.  The result?  The company did a great job of selling themselves as a great place to work and had three candidates that really wanted the job.

How does your company stand out as an Employer of choice?  Share your thoughts with us!  Struggling to define your top selling points?   Red Seat offers a one-hour workshop on employer branding focused on recruiting and retention.  If you are interested in capitalizing on what you already do well, we think this is an hour well spent. 

How the "level" of a position impacts hiring

Are the job duties you are hiring for compatible?

Does your company hire one person for two jobs?