The Recruiting Animal

Mr Moustache Rides Again

On July 23, 2008, Mr Moustache Richard Becker of copywriteink.com made his third appearance on The Recruiting Animal Show.

In his recap of the show, Moustache points out how ignorant recruiters can be about branding.

Simply saying “I’m a recruiter” is not really a message; it’s a job description... it doesn’t do much to help a prospect decide why they might choose to work with one recruiter over another.

Moustache also takes a shot at companies that are too chicken to blog for fear of what readers will say in the comments.

Some professionals and companies... tend to shy away from social media because they are too afraid of what other people might think, say, or do.

Personally, I think that’s baloney. If your professional or company message cannot stand up to a challenge now and again, then your message probably doesn’t have much merit at all.

Meaning, they might have a good message but not the service to back it up.

I wanted to talk to Moustache about many things but I didn't manage the time properly. (I guess I let Cliff Mintz hog the floor because he's got a PhD.) So I'll have to have Moustache back again.

One thing I particularly wanted to discuss were his thoughts about apologies. I think he advises us do it once and move on because it's better to take a hit from angry victims than try to placate them endlessly. I like the spunk in that answer but it requires some clarification.

Clip from the show: Branding by Company name.
See also: Dave Manaster vs Susan Strayer on branding.

Animal Show Wed July 23 NOON EDT

GUEST: Richard Becker (Mr Moustache)
Blog, Twitter, LinkedIn

TOPIC: Marketing for Recruiters

Call in and Listen Info Here

Marketing on Social Media

1. The Personal is Professional
You create an online presence in microblogging (eg Twitter) by sharing mundane personal information with your "followers". Inotherwords, you promote yourself in the guise of chatting with "friends".

2. Overshare
Tell your audience what you are doing all day long. This means endless messages about where you are, what you're eating, who you're meeting, plus photos and videos (if you have them).

3. Enhance Your Image
It's easy to make yourself seem like someone special by publishing bits and pieces of made up life. The aura of success you create can be used to attract business.

Take a look at these Twitter postings:

Animal: Had dinner with the Assistant Deputy Minister last week. He said some very interesting things

Animal: Invited to my friend's island this weekend. Couldn't be bothered.

Both of them are true. I know a guy who's been with the government a long time and is now a senior manager. Once a month, I eat at a Chinese buffet with the same bunch of guys and he's part of the dinner crew.

Another friend comes from a wealthy family. They own a small island with a fancy cottage. He wanted me to drive some of his daughter's friends up to the lake because he's busy racing his car.

You might think that this kind of crap isn't worth posting but if you want to be a somebody online, think again.

How To Sell

Before the advent of department stores, small retailers used their front windows in a straightforward manner to put their goods on display. The big department store windows were different. They were used to put on a display meant to charm and amaze.

Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz, was a window dressers and founded the National Association of Window Trimmers. "Even the male mind, naturally obtuse upon such matters, is forced to marvel at the beauty of the display," he said.

What's the lesson here? Sell the sizzle not the steak. The plain goods are not as emotionally compelling as the context in which they are presented.

That's why some recruiting firms rent fancy offices in downtown towers. But how can theatrics make a job seem magical when the person you are presenting it to understands it quite well? Doesn't familiarity with something that is probably not a dramatic change, rule out big dreams?

Reference: Froma Harrop

How To Lie Effectively

Recently, I've been reading critiques of marketing successes in the political field.

Martin Kramer shows us how you can use an over-simplified interpretion of the facts to misrepresent them. Here's what he means.

If two percent of your survey sample says they would commit terrorist acts and twenty percent says they strongly agree with those acts, you announce that only a tiny fraction of the people surveyed are extremists.

And we all recently saw a shifty but powerful interpretation of Barack Obama's Jeremiah Wright problem, as well. The press reported that Obama had opened a much needed conversation about race when, in fact, he was merely forced into rationalizing his support for a lunatic mentor.

Hillary ran into problems, however, because in her creative marketing she didn't merely interpret facts, she invented facts about her visit to Bosnia that were very easy to check and, so, was immediately refuted with videos of the actual event .

The lesson: it's easier to lie when you are merely spinning the facts rather than out and out lying about them. And it's easier to lie when the truth about your facts cannot be easily discovered.

The Length of Your Presentation

Depends on what you are presenting.

The length of your sales writing will depend on:

1. Lead generation needs less detail;
    an ad that aims to sell must address every potential objection
2. The higher the price, the longer it takes to justify or create the need.
3. The benefits of an unfamiliar product or service require a lot of explanation
4. The more features, the more writing required.

You have to test the results of your writing using various approaches
to see what works best.

Source: Copyblogger

Employment Branding

Source: Mike McNeal

1. An employment brand offers a differentiating value proposition for candidates and employees.

It draws applicants. Because if they hear something about your company that hits home, they'll remember it.

2. Target the right audience

Ask your top performers:
- how they found out about their jobs
- what makes them stay.
- what is in their jobs that will appeal to people like them
- where can you reach them during leisure time

3. Find the best way to get your message to your ideal candidates.
- ask your recruitment advertising agency for fresh media and event ideas
- go beyond newspaper advertising to find people in their own environment
- your emp brand is seen in your choice of media, your booth at a career fair, your recruiters in interviews (and it is reinforced or contradicted on the first day of work)

4. Features and Trust
- when you ask people to change their lives you have to make them feel safe doing so
- you have to tell them what distinguishes you as an employer
- and you have to give them reasons to trust you

5. Make everyone in the company a recruiter
- give employees words to say

6. Your Career Page
- make sure it can easily be found from the homepage
- it should be consistent with the branding on the rest of the site.
- your goal here is to help the candidate imagine what it would be like to work for your company
- think relationship building: let visitors create profiles, refer friends, request follow-up on future opportunities and subscribe to a newsletter

7. Measure Your Success
- gather data and create metrics on everything you've done

Why Long Headlines Work

Short headlines are easy to scan and 60% of the most effective headlines used in the direct mail industry are eight words or less. But these figures mean that longer headlines work, too.

Web pages are scanned in a “F” pattern, moving across the headline then back across the subheadline, then down the left hand side of the page to see if there is anything of interest.

So you might want to include more than 8 words in your headline to provide something of interest as the reader scans the page.

Source Copyblogger

Use Proven Words

Don't write well. Use words that sell.

Some words are proven to persuade. A “swipe file” is a collection of presentations, headlines, websites, etc that have been used by others and have proven persuasive value. Copy them but not blindly. Make sure that they can be transplanted to your use.

How To Persuade
When you write, ask these questions:
Who is my target audience?
Why would they want what I recommend?
What are the strengths of the opposing ideas?
How are my ideas better?

And, when you want to persuade, focus on the benefits of the action you recommend. Talk about the results.

A lot of people try to explain how great their product is - without telling about what it can do for their customers. Make the product front and center.

Source: Copyblogger

How to Overcome Skepticism

Source: Brian Clark

We aren't suckers. We aren't gullible rubes. We have been subjected to so much advertising that we have been trained, properly, to be skeptical. We know that we shouldn't simply believe.

So how does a poor recruiter get through to this kind of sophisticate? You have to prove somehow that you know what you're up to and that you're not out to bamboozle anyone.

What does that mean? That you have to build a relationship first. Before you do business you have to get them to trust you. It takes time but you'll have many opportunities to make deals after you've convinced someone that you do deliver the goods.

This makes tutorial marketing on a blog a smart way to present yourself online.

A free introduction to your subject starts the relationship and your regular blog postings keep it going. And eventually, you’ll turn some readers into candidates or clients and get some referrals.

The ongoing value of an ongoing relationship is much greater than what you get by asking for someone's business as soon as you say hello. Old-school closing techniques just make people see you as a social predator who disrespects them and only wants to push them around.