An Introduction to Recruitment Branding

What is recruitment branding? What is it for? How do you begin to create a recruitment brand? And how important is it in your online recruitment advertising campaign?

What is recruitment branding?

Recruitment branding is, basically, the communication of your company’s recruitment values. Just as your wider company branding communicates your service or product values to potential clients or customers, so your recruitment brand communicates your recruitment values, that is, your mission, culture, ethics and recruitment goals to potential employees.

In other words, while your recruitment brand captures and expresses what it’s like to work for your company and, perhaps more importantly for recruitment activity, what’s good about working for your company, your recruitment branding is how you choose to communicate that to potential employees.

What are the benefits of recruitment branding?

The success of any company is almost entirely down to the people working in it. Recruiting the right person can transform your company and your fortunes. Recruitment branding can help you find better staff — so it’s a crucial piece of the recruitment puzzle.

Research consistently shows that people choose companies and the people in them as much as they choose jobs when deciding on applying for a job and accepting one. Recruitment brand, therefore, plays a key part in helping people to choose to work in your company. Having a clear recruitment brand allows potential employees to evaluate whether yours is a company they actually want to work for or not.

Defining your recruitment brand

The most important thing to do when you begin to think about your recruitment brand is to be honest with yourself about your company as an employer. To create an accurate recruitment brand, you have to be honest about what it’s like to work in your company.

Take a good look around. What are the advantages for employees in working for you? Are there opportunities for advancement? Can they develop valuable skills? Will they get paid lots of money? Or will they get paid poorly but work in a really fun and vibrant atmosphere? Is there flexible working? All these things are part of your recruitment values.

Often, one of the best ways to get a feel for your recruitment brand is to talk to your staff. And listen too. Your staff are the ones who know what it’s really like to work in your company. Ask them about it. Ask them what attracted them to the company in the first place. What do they like most about working in it? Ask them how they describe it as a place to work to their friends.

There will be negatives, of course, but listen and embrace the criticism. If you suddenly realise the picture you had in your head of your company is different to the reality, then you’ll be better off for it. The process will help you better clarify what your company is really like rather than what you would like to think your company is like.

It’s important to be honest. If your company demands hard work and long hours, don’t pretend that it doesn’t. Not everybody will be attracted by your work ethic but plenty of people will. Many people want to work hard —if there is something in it for them, of course. So, if yours is a ‘nose to the grindstone’ kind of place be honest about it. Don’t try to attract people who are looking for a more relaxed and chilled out place to work. They simply won’t fit in. You will end up spending time interviewing the wrong people, hiring the wrong people and both parties realising that what you led them to believe about your company was inaccurate. A waste of time all round.

However, this is a brand you are looking talking about so do present your company values in a positive way. Be truthful and confident in what’s good about your company. You are selling your company as a place to work. This is, effectively, an marketing and advertising activity. Be honest but be confident too. What’s great about your company? Tell people.

Implementing your recruitment brand

Once you have established what your recruitment brand is, create a list of messages that best encapsulate it. These are the “what-it’s-like-to-work-for-your-company” messages. These will be the basis of your recruitment brand communications.

How you communicate this is up to you. It can be implemented and executed in many ways —visual (the look of your job ads), written (how your ads are worded), verbal (how you or your staff talk about your company to others) etc. The important thing is that the “what-it’s-like-to-work-for-your-company” message is clear and consistent in all you do — both recruitment communications and otherwise.

Getting your recruitment brand right lets you tell potential employees “what it’s like to work for your company” and lets potential employers decide whether they like the sound of “what it’s like to work for your company.” By creating a recruitment brand you make it easier for the right people to find you and want to work with you. And that is recruitment gold.

Next steps? Check out these other guides and articles:

• Advantages and Disadvantages of Careers Sites
• An introduction to Careers Sites for employers
• An introduction to Psychometric Testing & Assessment
• An introduction to Referral Recruiting
• Search Engine Marketing for Recruitment
• Ten tips for a great careers site for employers
• Ten tips for choosing an applicant tracking system