Recruiter Chicks

It was an honor to speak at Cornerstone OnDemand’s Talent Leadership Breakfast meeting last week in Atlanta.  It was a great event that was dedicated to providing best practices in change management and a plan to implement an integrated talent management strategy.

My session was entitled, “Aligning Employee Engagement to Organizational Strategy” and primarily focused on the Three Key Drivers of Employee Engagement: (1) Recognition (2) Career Development and (3) Influence.

Here is a link to the PowerPoint presentation and slides:

In today’s competitive marketplace, it is becoming increasingly important to companies to craft an employment branding message that differentiates you from the competition.  It is also important for your Recruiting team to provide a consistent message to candidates in the sourcing and interviewing process.  Your employment brand is an integral part of your company’s talent attraction and retention strategies.

For some organizations creating an employment branding message is easy because it ties directly into your company’s overall branding message.  I recently wrote a blog post on Mercedes Benz’ employer brand and they have created a brand message that can be felt, experienced and utilized across the board.  It is important for HR to weigh in on new marketing messages and strategy for the company to ensure that the overall message will represent the organization well to top candidates in the fields in which they recruit and current employees.

I have laid out 10 key question to ask below to assist in the process of identifying and creating your company’s employment branding message.

10 Questions to Ask to Develop Your Employment Branding Message

1.  What is our corporate strategy?

2.  What are our key corporate goals?

3.  What are we known for doing well today?

4.  We want to be known as an employer who?

5.  What cultural elements of our brand are not negotiable?  This is key when developing a global employer brand.

6.  Why do our employees choose us over our competitors?

7.  What is our organization’s long-term strategy?

8.  What 50 words describe our culture?  Narrow those down to the top 10 and focus in on those.

9.  Which employees in our company best exhibit our culture and brand promise today?  How would you describe those employees?  Solicit their involvement in this process.

10.  Who is the right fit for our company based on our overall goals?

Compile the answers to these questions and use them as a foundation for determining your company’s employee value proposition.  Once you have developed the employer brand message, implement a plan that works well for your company to get the word out externally and internally.  Take purposeful and intentional steps to ensure that this message does not die on the cutting room floor.

In conclusion, keep in mind that your employer brand is only as good as an employee’s daily experience of that brand promise.

Was it a surprise to you that the HR Manager, Keith was kicked out of the Big Brother house first?  It was to me.  As a big fan of the show, I researched the cast before the show started.  I noticed that one cast member, Keith is an HR Manager and I was hoping he would come in and make us proud.  I was ready to cheer on my fellow HR colleague in the game of Big Brother, however he was the first to get evicted.

Just as the show started rolling, I was interested in watching his game play and truly thought…this is what BB needs, he may revolutionize the game as we know it.  However, before I could blink he was out of the house.

So, why was the HR Guy’s BB tenure cut short? The reasons for his abrupt dismissal correlates quite well with what can happen in a business setting. So, let’s expose Keith’s shortcomings…

1. He did not assess the environment

2. He thought it would be a cake walk because he “deals with human capital” all the time

3. He did not partner with his housemates

4. He was unable to react quickly to change

5. And finally, his strategy was to use his HR charm to get everyone to trust and love him

Well folks, this is an accurate description of the HR professional gone wrong.

All you aspiring HR pros, don’t follow in his footsteps.  If you can avoid some of these pitfalls you’ll likely see a better fate than Keith.