Regardless of the economic conditions, top talent is always in demand, difficult to find and even tougher to hire!
Critical to your success is developing – - and articulating – - a positive brand regarding your company, the culture, and the career opportunities that exist within your organization.
We recently did a pretty cool exercise with a company that resulted in some awesome marketing material and recruitment collateral.
At a recent HR/recruiter meeting, we posed the following questions to the entire staff:
- What truly are your candidates’ motives?
- Why would they leave their current organization and join yours?
- Why would they select your organization versus your competitor’s?
- What is important to the candidate in accepting a position with a new company?
Then we asked them to articulate 52 reasons why someone would want to join their organization versus the competition
Now when we started the exercise, we started getting the same canned marketing clichés that EVERYONE uses:
- We have a dynamic culture.
- We have excellent benefits.
- Our employees are #1.
- Blah, Blah, Blah….
So I encouraged the team to develop articulate, granular statements that would convey flashy adjectives like “great”, “excellent”, “flexible”, etc. without using the same words everyone else uses. Instead of saying, “We have excellent benefits”, explain or quantify why they are excellent.
Phrases started to come out like:
Great Benefits
- Cutting edge, innovative healthcare program
- 100% preventative healthcare coverage
- Health Savings Account; Triple Tax Savings!
- 50% match on 401k/retirement plan up to 6%
- Healthcare coverage as low as $1.00/week!
In the end, we were able to craft 52 reasons why to join this company under the following categories (note – this is a manufacturing company):
- Company Stability
- Career Path
- Great Benefits
- Ongoing Education
- Work Schedules
- Trivia
- Innovation
- Face behind the Face
- Global Expansion
- Safety 1st
- XYZ family
So did you figure out why we challenged the team to come up with 52 reasons why a candidate would join their company? We ended up creating a customized playing card deck with these statements on each card.
Talk about a cool branding tool. This organization currently uses them at a job fairs, gives them to employees, etc.
The response has been amazing. Many fellow “job fair” recruiters have asked how to get their hands on such a customized branding tool that candidates will use (especially college grads).
Employees have commented, “I didn’t know all these things about our company!”
This organization has gone even farther with these statements to hang them in hallways, cafeterias, etc.
The statements have become great reminders about the company they work for and the great things it has to offer.
If you are interested in obtaining more information on performing this worthwhile exercise and/or examples of these playing cards – - please contact me!