Recruiting Animal

Animal Guest Fights Back

After battle over personal branding.

From: Susan Strayer.com

Today I joined the Recruiting Animal as his radio show guest for a high-energy debate about personal branding. You can listen to my defense, err, the debate here.

It is strange to me that so many people react to personal branding as a farce or a non-event. Being the best isn't enough when there are a lot of people who are the best (make the company the most money, are "A" players, land the blue chip clients). ....

So for all you detractors out there, please go ahead and keep doing a great job at work. A lot of people do a great job. If you're one of them, how do you stand out? What combination of features, of behaviors make you the one that's remembered?

Self-Definition

You're at a party and someone asks you what you do. You say you're a recruiter. That's a very general definition and it means trouble because if you look just like your competition, no one has any special reason to come to you.

If you want to stand out, you have to stand for something special. It could be your market niche. It could be your price. But it's got to be something.

Source: Natural Marketing

Personal Branding Magazine

Yoshko intros Schwabey's new mag

More on Employment Brands

Source: John Sullivan

Product branding gives consumers an automatic idea about your product. Employment branding gives candidates the automatic idea that your company is a great place to work.

The employment brand contains ideas about: company culture, management style, quality of employees, promotion opportunities, stability of employment, the value of the product or service, the rank of the company in the industry, awards the company has received, training opportunities and the nature of the work.

The goal is to give people a clear, compelling reason to want to work at the company. You want them to think that they could have a great life in there because it's fun, challenging, prestigious, and financially rewarding.

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

Recruiters and Brands

Harry Joiner: I don't think most recruiters have a brand. I think most recruiters are completely undifferentiated. I went to the directory of websites and pulled up a list of executive search firms. Here's ten, starting at the top. AL Associates, Allen Darling Consulting, The Alexander Group, Allen Search, Barrett Webb, Basil One Oliver, Bellwether Executive Search....

What the hell do any of these companies do? What is their differentiation? I like what Al Ries said in "Positioning": a brand is like the edge of a knife. You need a sharp edge. And the extent to which you try to extend that brand over too many things is the extent to which you dull the edge of that brand. You ought to pick one horse and ride the hell out of it. Look I'm no genius, we all know that, but I think everybody ought to have a brand that speaks to whatever it is they do.

Animal: But look at Jason Warner from Starbucks. He makes candidate experience his recruiting brand.

Harry Joiner: It's impossible to occupy a top-of-mind position in an over-communicated market based on touchy-feely soft attributes like how you make the candidate feel. He wouldn't be able to accomplish the same objective if he was working for Rawlings Sporting Goods or Baxter Health Care. There is a certain cachet about the Starbucks brand .

Source: 46 minute mark, Animal Panel 07.10.10

Logo Blog

Our first assignment in art class in high school (Grade 10) was to design a logo. I can't remember which logo I did. I was much better at art history than art. Here's a blog about logos

Remember what the marketingheadhunter said: Most recruiting firms are undifferentiated.

I Am Not A Visionary

Said Canada's Founding Father.

"I am satisfied to confine myself to practical things – to the securing of such practical measures as the country really wants. I am satisfied not to have a reputation for indulging in imaginary schemes and harbouring visionary ideas."

-- John A Macdonald (via David Olive, Toronto Star)

How Valuable Is A Brand

Stuey Itkin was trying to get a budget for building a brand. So he asked the finance team:

"Think about buying a new inkjet printer: what is the first product that comes to mind?"
Everyone said Hewlett-Packard. Then he asked, "Who else?" No answer.

Then he asked: "Think about buying a new network router..." Everyone said Cisco. "Who else would you consider?" Silence.

Then: "Think about buying a laptop computer..." Everyone said Dell . IBM which had been out of the laptop business for a few years was next.

Everyone agreed that an investment in branding could increase their consideration rate by 5%. which would mean a 13% increase in net sales.

The Value of a Brand

Lies in creating a strong bias.

You want to invest in a company where the brand is ingrained in the consumer psyche so that it creates a barrier for competing companies....

So which companies have the best brands? According to Interbrand and Business Week’s list, Coca Cola comes in at number #1 for 2007.....

Twenty years down the line, do you think Google will still be the king of the search engines or will something else take over? Maybe, maybe not, but I have confidence that people will still be gassy drinking Coke in good and bad times.

Money Relations.com

Hat Tip: Ellen Roseman