What does your brand have to do with your recruitment process and how can it impact the success of that recruitment campaign? Well you might be surprised to know your brand and considering whether or not you should use it when you are next recruiting can have a huge impact on the success of your recruitment campaign.
You’ve no doubt seen the job adverts in the newspaper and on online jobs boards that have no branding. They don’t provide the company name and often they don’t even provide contact details to call and enquire about the vacancy. Some organisations will even go to the extremes of setting up a generic email address so they can’t be identified.
Going to these extremes isn’t going to do much for you in terms of engaging the job seeker in the opportunity. One of the first things a job seeker will want to know is who their potential employer is going to be. In this day and age of recruitment your new potential employee has choices and they may decide to apply or not apply for your vacancy because of their perception of your brand. Providing no information on who the employer is will deter people from applying and in most cases it will be the best of the best talent that don’t bother applying. If you have concerns about promoting who you are as an employer, rather than going completely unbranded and missing out on the opportunity to engage with top talent you may want to consider using a recruitment agency. This will at least allow potential candidates the opportunity to enquire about the vacancy so they can decide if the opportunity is worth their time and effort to apply for.
No details about the company also leaves you wondering, what’s going on here? Why is the company trying to hide who they are or what have they got to hide. It creates suspicion and doubt, not the foot you want to start off on when trying to encourage a candidate to apply for a job.
It’s worth considering the reputation of your business in the marketplace. There may in fact be times when it is better not to disclose who the employer is. Maybe you have had some bad publicity in the marketplace of recent. Maybe you have had some high staff turnover and you have advertised this job multiple times over the last few months or year. Weighing up the perception of your brand in the marketplace prior to executing your next recruitment campaign is crucial for success in attracting the right candidates. If you get it wrong you will be potentially throwing your advertising dollars down the drain.
Not sure about your perception in the marketplace? It’s really not that hard to gather some data to help you make your decision. You don’t have to invest thousands of dollars and have a marketing agency do a brand review; you simply need to talk to people. Ask your existing employees. Were they attracted to apply for their jobs because of your brand? What do their friends and peers think of your brand? Have your employees ask around to gather the information. You can also talk to a local recruiter and find out if your organisation is an employer of choice with candidates that they are talking to. You might be surprised about how much information a recruiter can provide you in this regard. They talk to job seekers day in and day out and they have their finger on the pulse when it comes to hearing feedback about who job seekers do and don’t want to work for. If you can, talk to others in your industry. How are they finding the talent market at the moment?
If it turns out that it might be beneficial for you to keep your details confidential, it will be extremely important to consider how you are going to engage with potential candidates. In my experience the best of the best talent will want to talk to you. They want to find out more about the opportunity before they apply. You need to engage them in the opportunity. If you aren’t putting your details in the advert you need to think about how you are going to overcome that challenge. Maybe you just leave your company logo and name off the advert but still have your contact details. Any savvy candidate will do their research and try and research who you are and what company you work for but this is better than having no contact details at all.
There may be legitimate business operational reasons why you feel you cannot promote your brand. Maybe you are going through a restructure but want to save time and start the recruitment process but don’t want your existing staff to know. Maybe you are creating a new position but can’t officially announce it as yet. While it might save you time by kicking off the recruitment process early, you need to consider if the time you will save is going to be of greater value to you than possibly missing out on exceptional talent who flick past your vacancy because with no branding the opportunity doesn’t catch their eye.
There are no exact rules when it comes to branding or not branding your job advert. In my experience I have found a branded advert to be more successful at engaging candidates in the enquiry and application stage but you need to decide what is right for your organisation; taking in to account a holistic view of the business needs, reputation, timing and getting the best outcome. Just make sure whatever you do, you give the decision serious thought and consideration before jumping in and branding or not branding. Without consideration, what you initially thought was the quicker, easier, faster, more simplistic option may end up costing you more in the long run.
