Tag Archive: Employment Brand

  1. Strengthen Your Employer Brand Strategy Through Storytelling

    Storytelling is becoming the crux of employers’ brand strategy. Because it works.

    Storytelling has been a part of the human experience for 30,000 years – or longer, if we assume that people were telling stories before the advent of writing.

    From ancient mythology to the latest Netflix original, the draw of storytelling is so powerful that it cuts across age, gender, race, culture, and all other demographics. Brain scans show that stories activate important social and emotional processing centers in our brains. Marketers and advertisers know that storytelling is the key to connecting with consumers. It works for connecting companies with candidates, too.

    Here are 5 effective strategies to strengthen your employer brand and attract more candidates:

    1. Be authentic.

    It may be tempting to paint the perfect picture of your company, but be careful not to oversell it. Your brand is how people build trust with you, and with sites like Glassdoor, the truth will quickly come out.

    The best way to present an authentic brand is by showcasing your employees. Use short videos as a way for employees to talk about their experiences and explain why they like working with your company. Then you’ll have compelling stories to share, and by listening to employees, you’ll also understand your brand’s strongest selling points.

    2. Provide details.

    People are inundated with messages every day, so speaking in generalities – like, “This company is a great place to work!” – is nothing more than background noise. Instead, craft stories around a single element of your brand.

    Dollar General, for example, tells stories of career growth, showing how employees can move from sales associate to store manager and beyond. Your story might be about work-life balance, community involvement, mentorship programs, or something else. Whatever it is that makes your company interesting or unique, that’s the story you should tell.

    3. Create a narrative.

    The narrative arc is what makes a story a story. While you’re not writing a screenplay or a novel, your employer brand story should still have a beginning, middle, and end.

    Your company’s history is a story. There was a time before your company, then something that brought your company into existence (an idea, a discovery, a merger). You might chronicle the events that shaped your company into what it is today. Or, you might give the backstory of your company’s mission with give examples of how it’s fulfilling its purpose.

    4. Make experiences easy and enjoyable.

    Candidates will be more receptive to your company’s stories when they’re simple, stay on point, and easy to navigate through. The best experiences are those that follow a logical path or journey.

    You might have great employer brand stories, but are they easy to find? At the end of a story, which might be page on your career site or company culture video, is there a call to action showing the candidate where to go next? Think about how your stories fit together, and how candidates might consume those stories throughout the recruitment and hiring process.

    5. Give a taste of what’s to come.

    Employer brand stories will feature your employees, your culture, your benefits. You’ll have to find ways to help candidates see where they fit in, and how they can contribute to the story if hired.

    This starts by showing candidates how your company can help push them to the next level in their career. Through your stories, represent your brand as the bridge that gets them to where they want to be. You can do this by demonstrating your company’s growth, as well as the growth of employees within your company.

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    To learn more about how to tell compelling stories through video, check out the Ultimate Guide to Video Interviewing.

  2. Video Interviewing Makes Hiring Human Again

    In a tight labor market where job opportunities abound, competition for talent is at an all-time high. Attracting top candidates – and keeping them engaged through the hiring process – is a must for employers looking to stay competitive.

    To create the kind of employer brand that attracts and engages top candidates, Talent Acquisition teams are learning to operate like marketing teams. And marketers know, when it comes to engagement, there’s nothing more effective than video. Some quick stats on the power of video:

    • Video attracts 2-3X as many monthly visitors (Wordstream).
    • Viewers retain 95% of a message when they watch it in a video, compared to 10% when reading it in text (Wirebuzz)
    • Social video generates 1200% more shares than text and image content combined (Wordstream)

    Video is also incredibly powerful in Talent Acquisition. That’s what makes Outmatch’s acquisition of Wepow, a video interviewing solution, so timely. According to Greg Moran, CEO of Outmatch:

    The acquisition recognizes the importance of speed, engagement, and personal connection in today’s tight labor market.”

    Providing a much-needed upgrade to existing candidate screening and interviewing processes, Wepow’s video technology is a breath of fresh air for candidates, and an important differenatior for employers.

    In an era that’s highly focused on automation, analytics, and AI (all things we love, of course, as they are at the core of our business), video interviewing is unique in that it makes hiring human and personal again. According to one job candidate who used Wepow video interviewing:

    Video interviewing makes the experience more personal. It gives the hiring team a chance to see and interact with me in a way that can’t be done during a phone interview.”

    Not only does video interviewing humanize the hiring process, it connects employers and candidates all over the world, regardless of location. This gives employers access to nearly limitless talent pools without any travel expenses, making recruitment extremely productive and cost-effective.

    Adding video interviewing to its platform of predictive talent solutions, Outmatch strengthens its ability to identify and engage high-potential talent, which ultimately drives business performance and profitability for clients. Moran says:

    “With the added layer of video interviewing, we have the ability to humanize the hiring process in a way that’s never been done through a convergence of unparalleled data, AI and machine learning, IO science, and a more personal touch that matters to people seeking ideal jobs.”

    Imo Udom, co-founder and CEO of Wepow, is equally excited:

    “Wepow and Outmatch are a perfect match. We are thrilled to become part of the Outmatch family, who shares our belief that every hire impacts business success.”

    Read more about how Outmatch and Wepow are improving hiring outcomes together.

    Is your organization ready for video interviewing? Ask these 5 questions

    1. Is your organization growing or planning to grow by 50 new hires or more this year?
    2. Is your organization expanding across multiple regions or countries?
    3. Does scheduling interviews take too much time and resources?
    4. Do you need greater interview consistency and compliance?
    5. Do you want to be seen as innovative?

    If so, schedule a demo of video interviewing today!

  3. Recruiting and Hiring: Lessons Learned from Marketers

    In today’s world, recruiters and talent acquisition leaders are acting more and more like marketers. Why? Because the process of converting a candidate into a hire is a lot like the process of converting a prospect into a customer.

    It’s all about the funnel. The recruitment funnel, much like the sales and marketing funnel, is the best way to understand how effective your messages are, and if you’re attracting the right people to your brand.

    Here’s what the sales and marketing funnel looks like:

    The Top of the Funnel: A Lead

    This is the entry point, and the widest part of the funnel. Someone enters your funnel by expressing interest in something you do. You don’t know much about them at this point, other than they raised their hand by clicking on a social post, visiting your website, downloading an eBook, etc. To move them further down the funnel, you have to nurture their interest, or they’re likely to forget about you.

    The 2nd Level: Discovery 

    A lead moves into this part of the funnel when they express a little more interest in finding out who you are, what you do, and how it might affect them. At this point, a sales rep will start a conversation to qualify the lead and understand things like budget, needs, and timeline.

    The 3rd Level: Opportunity

    This is the consideration stage. The lead is likely doing their research and vetting your company against others before making their final decision. A lead converts into an opportunity when the sales rep decides that this is a viable deal and there’s a real probability it will close.

    The Bottom of the Funnel: A Win

    This is the purchase stage, when the opportunity takes that final action to become a customer. The deal is closed, and the sales team celebrates.

    Now here’s how that same funnel applies to recruiting:

    In the recruiting funnel, candidates are your leads. They can come from anywhere. Maybe they saw an ad on Indeed, or maybe they visited your Careers page. At this point, they’re not qualified yet, and they may or may not take any action to begin the application process.

    Next down, you have people who have expressed interest in a specific job. They’ve gone from being a passive candidate to an active candidate. After initial screening, if they’re qualified for the job, they’ll move to the third level—the interview process. You have to decide if this candidate is worth spending time with and why. The last stage is similar to the sale—you make an offer and if they accept, the job is filled and you have your new hire!

    Is your recruitment funnel delivering?

    The purpose of the funnel is to weed out the uninterested and unqualified candidates, leaving you with the ones who best fit your culture and have the right competencies for the job. Take a look at your funnel to see how it’s working. What are you conversation rates from one part of the funnel to next? Are you meeting your goals, or do you need to invest more in a certain area? For example, if you don’t have enough qualified candidates at the bottom of the funnel, you may need to expand your sourcing efforts in order to cast a wider net and increase the chances of getting qualified candidates to apply.

    To learn more about cross-functional collaboration between talent acquisition and marketing, watch our webinar: How to Recruit Like a Marketer.

     

  4. What Makes Your Company Great? Red Bull Inspires

    Which came first – the brand or the company? The company or the brand? In the case of Red Bull, it’s their brand that drives the business. As their motto implies – “Red Bull gives you wings” – this company is all about pushing limits. In 2012, they literally took the sky (actually, all the way to space) by sponsoring the highest ever free-fall parachute jump from 24 miles above the Earth. And today, we continue to see them push the limits in the air, land, and water.

    According to Forbes, “This adventurous spirit is a reflection of Red Bull’s freewheeling corporate culture that has enabled the company to build an enviable performance record over the last 30 years.”

    Need proof that living your brand not only drives performance, but builds your talent pipelines as well? It works for Red Bull. At of the end of 2016, Red Bull employed 11,865 people in 171 countries. On their career page, they say this:

    Profit is not our driver, it’s chasing our potential. It’s giving wings to people and ideas.” 

    Red Bull has build a fan base around world records and epic adventures, but not all companies need to attract the thrill-seeker type. What’s your company all about? This blog post on DisruptHR should get you thinking about what makes your company great, and what inspires people within your company to strive for greatness. Then, your job in HR is to find ways to inject that message of greatness into your employment brand – so you can attract and retain talent that is perfectly suited to your brand and culture.

    We’ve seen impressive cross-functional efforts in recent years between HR and Marketing to join forces as brand ambassadors, and unite the corporate and employment brand under one “roof.” If your company already has a strong brand and culture, then there’s no need to re-invent it. Rather, immerse yourself in it. Become an expert in your company’s culture and turn it into your competitive advantage. When you do, you’ll not only boost your applicant flow, but you’ll see an uptick in the right type of candidates for your company. The wrong candidates will self-select out, making it easier for Talent Acquisition to fill roles faster. You’ll also see that a strong culture leads to stronger employee engagement and retention.

    For more information on leveraging your brand and culture to maximize the potential of your workforce, check out our webinar: Culture DNA: How to Measure, Endorse, and Turn it into Your Competitive Advantage.

     

  5. Primanti Bro’s.: Finding Best-Fit Candidates for Grand Openings in 2017

    The assessment results help me decide if a candidate is the right fit for the position they applied for. The candidate receives a score from 1-5 on the assessment, and depending on the results, I know immediately whether to proceed or release the candidate from the interview process.

    Samantha Willing, Talent Acquisition Specialist
    Biggest challenge: Helping managers staff up for new restaurant openings

    About Primanti Bros.

    This sandwich shop, headquartered in Pittsburgh, PA, began as a food cart in 1933 and now has a cult following. With 37 current locations and several openings planned for 2017, the Primanti Bro’s. growth plan is aggressive and will launch the brand into new areas across the U.S.

    Company Quick Facts

    • 37 locations and growing
    • 55 employees per store, on average
    • Working with Outmatch since 2016
    • Using assessments for hourly and management
    • Integrated assessments with talentReef ATS

    Hiring Challenges

    • Establishing an employment brand in new cities
    • Attracting talent outside their “hometown” fan base
    • Being fully staffed in time for grand openings
    • Tracking and managing turnover

    Assessments to Help Staff New Stores

    As a unique restaurant concept, Primanti Bro’s. seeks people who are passionate about the brand and fit the culture. With rapid expansion as a key initiative, recruiters and hiring managers must quickly fill front of house (FOH), back of house (BOH), and management positions for new locations with no existing staff. That’s why Primanti Bro’s. began using Outmatch assessments in 2016—to speed up the hiring process by targeting best-fit candidates.

    Results—Better Recruiting, Hiring, and Talent Management

    I’ve gotten great feedback from hiring managers. They say that the assessment scores cut way down on the time they spend deciding if a candidate meets our company’s expectations.

    Samantha Willing, Talent Acquisition Specialist
    Biggest challenge: Helping managers staff up for new restaurant openings

    Outmatch helps me find the right people to hire. I print out the interview questions that come with the assessment results, and it really helps keep my questions relevant to that particular candidate.

    Josh Garrity, GM “Head Coach” at Erie, PA location
    Biggest challenge: Getting quality candidates for FOH and BOH positions

    We have a high percentage of internal promotions, which speaks to our ability to grow talent. The assessment results help us understand an individual’s potential and strengths and weaknesses so that we can align succession and development plans accordingly.

    Cheryl Domitrovic, Director of Human Resources
    Biggest Challenge: Winning talent in competitive markets