Between the candidate experience and all of the employer branding information out there, the recruitment brand is often lost.
It’s so much more than how candidates feel during the recruitment process or the logo attached to an organisation. All these elements are important and intertwined, but the ‘how to’ part of building a great recruitment brand is often forgotten in the shuffle. So in order to build – and sustain – a successful recruitment brand, here are 4 tips to help you along the way.
1. Consistent Information:
Across the various platforms the department uses and throughout the recruitment team, internal information and recruitment advertising information have to be the same. They need to have the same purpose in order to be effective. István Matits (@IMatits) and Vince Szymczak (@VinceSzy), Employer Branding and Social Media Specialist and Sourcing SME respectively said:
“Despite the complexity of contemporary recruiting, the most exciting innovations and improvements focus on core concepts. One of these is communication. For instance, consensus expressed at a recent European recruiting conference was that better communication between the recruiters and the hiring managers is a key factor in acquiring the best talent in the shortest period of time. Regardless of whether the recruiter is sitting in the same office as the hiring manager, works at a different company site, or is actually employed by a different entity in an RPO framework, there is room for better cooperation.”
2. Rejection? No problem:
If there is anything worse for a candidate than not landing their dream job at the perfect company, it’s when that “perfect” company doesn’t communicate the dismissal of their application. Of the candidates who are rejected during the process, 51% never hear from the organisation. And the candidates still in the running for the role often don’t hear back from the employer when the shortlist gets filtered further. Don’t waste time and effort rejecting 1 in 2 applications, if you are then not going to do anything with the 50% you have retained as ‘maybe’ relevant for the job. Be consistent and ensure that the ‘maybes’ know their value to your business.
3. Technology that helps, but doesn’t hinder:
How many tools does your recruitment team currently have? Now, how many of these platforms do they actually use? Large businesses use some type of HR analytics platform to assess their hiring decisions; but 37% of small companies do as well. With the plethora of tools available in the HR and recruiting space to make the best and most educated decisions when it comes to talent acquisition, organisations need to invest in the tools that are easy for their team to understand and doesn’t hurt the budget. With the right tools in place, recruiters and recruitment directors can focus on what’s truly important: the interaction with the candidate and the strategy behind talent acquisition.
4. There’s no “I” in “team”
The recruitment brand isn’t solely on the shoulders of those in the recruitment department. It involves anyone that might have contact with the candidate. Receptionists, interviewers, company leadership, any employee that has some sort of direct contact with the client plays a major role in developing and solidifying the recruitment brand. Make sure every employee is on the same page when it comes to proper recruitment practices. The only way to do this is by communication. However your team communicates, use that to get the word out. Email, social, intranet or courier pigeon, they need to know the plan, in order to support the plan.
Although inextricable from employer branding and the candidate experience, the way organisations brand their recruitment platform, ie their career site, deserves specialised special attention. First and foremost, the entire department has to be on the same page agree and support with the recruitment strategy so the brand-message is consistent from each team member. That strategy has to be relayed to employees outside of the department.
Communicate with candidates about their status in the recruitment process even if you use automated technology to take that burden off of the recruiters’ shoulders. Building and sustaining a healthy recruitment brand doesn’t have to be painful.
