Archive for the ‘ Employment Branding ’ Category

My Glass Isn’t Just Half Full, It’s Broken

Years ago, I had a prospect that I had been pursuing for several months, with zero success. I couldn’t sell them a thing. I had used all of my awesome sales training (Selling to VITO, Spin Selling, Give ‘Em the Pickle and more) to no avail. The client had expressed their pains, and I had listened attentively and then diligently worked alongside of them to fashion a solution that they agreed would solve their problems and certainly make their lives easier. The stumbling block was neither my contact nor his boss would take the risk and pull the trigger. Why? Because, in their eyes, change meant running the risk of making a huge mistake in front of peers or senior executives. Their fear of failure paralyzed and wedded them forever to their existing solution which was an admitted failure.

After disclosing in a tense pipeline review that another month would pass without this account closing, my manager sat me down. He had disappointment in his eyes and said these words I will never forget: ”It’s time you change up your approach- you’re growing stale. You need to get serious and break some glass or you will never get your customers to break it!” I was super frustrated and confused (break the glass? What in the world was he talking about?!) I wondered if my manager could tell that I wanted to throw everything in my cubicle including him. Then being sensitive to criticism, I felt my neck grow hot, embarrassed and shocked that someone actually thought my approach had gotten old. I mean, seriously, who the heck was he talking to? I had been told by clients that I was like an entire cheer squad, or a cute puppy with a severe case of ADD, but never had I been called stale. It took me a long time to get over that horrible moment in my cube…Looking back now; I understand what he was trying to do. He was giving me the big shove I needed to take a different approach and ruffle some feathers to get my point across.

Today, I speak to talent acquisition leaders daily and some of them are managing recruiting programs that are seriously flat lining. Sadly, some are incorporating recruiting methodologies and processes that were used 10-15 years ago and they are genuinely disturbed and saddened that the old “post and pray” isn’t effective anymore. Unfortunately, this is what happens when no one questions “the method behind your madness” or no one cares to challenge the status quo or when HR can’t get support from the rest of the business and they are relegated to being just a huge cost center. And, let’s face it, recruiting is not an easy gig right now and there is certainly no silver bullet. It is much easier to just sit back and keep riding the same old recruiting train. We can kick back and make stops here and there to lay blame: job boards don’t work, social media is unsafe and unproven, we lack resources or budget, or our website sucks, the economy blows, my recruiters are lazy, and the list goes on and on and on…

Personally, I made a vow to myself at the beginning of the year to find ways to start chipping away at the legacy glassware that has become the accepted and the norm. I am pushing myself to have frank, honest and sometimes uncomfortable discussions with my clients and hope that they don’t get their feelings hurt or throw me out of their offices. The questions aren’t that crazy, but you never know when you are knocking someone’s baby. ”Do you know who you are and why anyone would want to work for you?”, “Do you believe that your (fill in the blank with-process/job postings/ careersite/ branding) is effective?” or “Why do your current employees stay/leave?” Oh, and by the way, if you do know the answers to these questions, then why in the heck aren’t you sharing your story and/or fixing the issues? It might be a little uncomfortable, but not asking would be a disservice to our clients. I am going to help who I can that will listen and divert my attention from those that continue to don their 1999 recruiting earmuffs. I know that I might emerge at the end of 2012 with a few cuts and bruises, but I’m sticking to the plan because I can’t let myself or my customers get stale.

Final thought: I don’t recommend going in Rambo style and shattering everything in sight, but my mantra is “Take out your velvet hammer and start tapping, kids!” Life is better when the glass is half full and a bit broken.

Posted: February 3rd, 2012
at 9:20am by Deb Andrychuk

Tagged with advice, Employment Branding, marketing, recruitment, sales, social media, The Arland Group

Categories: Employment Branding

Comments: No comments

How Long Does an Employment Brand Last?

Well, there is no answer. But, I do have a great analogy – milk.

When does milk go bad?

Milk goes bad, when milk goes bad. Milk doesn’t expire on a given date. If I could squeeze a few more hundred dollars out of your wallet during a year by telling you that your milk expires a week early…would I do that? No, that would be wrong. But, not everyone is an “Arlander.”

Where does your milk come from?

For most of us, it’s not from our backyard. So, who is suppling your milk and where is it coming from? How did it get from A to B? Choose someone that knows milk. “Arlanders”, are farmers, distributors and retailers in just about every part of the country. Sometimes, we’re even the cow.

What is the average shelf-life of milk?

Milk does have a shelf-life. If someone gives you a definitive answer, run for the hills. Milk will eventually spoil. But, how do you know when? Sometimes you can just look at it and know. Sometimes it’s best to ask, “Hey, could you smell this and let me know what you think?” Ask us. We’ll be as honest as the day is long.

What do I do with spoiled milk?

Most of us would throw it away and get some new milk? I might get the same old skim or 2%, but maybe I should be drinking whole milk! Maybe it’s better for my health. Or, maybe I should drink soy milk or almond milk? How do I know what’s best for me? Most of the world drinks goat milk, why don’t we drink it? Let’s talk. Maybe you’re just fine? Maybe you could turn the spoiled milk in to yogurt, cream cheese or custard pudding. Sound good?

So, don’t have a cow. Just talk to someone who has one or two.

Milk is organic and so should your employment brand be. Times change. Attitudes change. Technology changes. A cow is still a cow.

Posted: January 27th, 2012
at 10:56am by Jonathan Galbreath

Categories: Employment Branding, Uncategorized

Comments: No comments

Some Things are NOT Better Together

When I present our social media solution to companies, a common question that I get asked is, “Why do I need a separate Facebook and Twitter careers page for our company, can’t we just incorporate this onto the corporate pages we’ve established?” The answer is no.

First of all, I like the St. Louis Cardinals page on Facebook. Does that mean I want to work at Busch Stadium? No, it doesn’t. (Although, if it meant free World Series tix, maybe.) People don’t necessarily become fans of a company on Facebook or follow them on Twitter because they want to work there. A corporate Facebook page is and should be geared toward consumers. Consumers often like to use this as an avenue to voice their praise of a company, but unfortunately, when you take the good, you get the ugly as well. Consumers LOVE to voice their negative opinions and experiences on these pages, which brings me to my next point. Are negative comments about your company the content you want your potential candidates to see?

You’d be surprised, but we rarely see negativity on career Facebook and Twitter pages. When we do, it’s more about not hearing back after an interview or resume submittal rather than unfounded accusations from disgruntled employees. These types of comments are actually a great opportunity to show responsiveness to the person posting and this responsiveness is seen as something positive to other job seekers. Win-win, right? Also, by keeping your employment brand social media pages separate, you can really focus on providing content that will interest your current employees and potential candidates. You can show people what it’s really like to work for your company through posts about work culture, highlighting individual employees for their achievements and showcasing the variety of career paths you have to offer.

Still not convinced? I could give you several other reasons on why you need to keep your corporate and employment brands separate on social media, but here’s the bottom line: Social media is here to stay and the recruitment aspect of it is rapidly growing. Pretty soon, traditional recruitment avenues will become irrelevant and it’s important to stay at the forefront of these developments. By establishing your employment brand on social media, you’re keeping yourself on top of the recruitment game.

Posted: October 26th, 2011
at 11:11am by Megan

Tagged with Employment Branding, recruitment, social media, social media plan, social media solutions, The Arland Group

Categories: Employment Branding

Comments: No comments

Three Things Every Exceptional Career Site Should Include

I am a person with few pet peeves. I have very few because when things irritate me, I generally look the other way. But when it comes to a poorly designed career site, I cannot pretend that it doesn’t bother me. Why? It drives me nuts when companies are their own worst enemy in the war for talent! It might sound silly, but it seems like any company who puts emphasis on their employees would want to the deliver the best first impression possible. Especially when in this day and age, you might only get one shot at wooing a candidate.

The company career site is the first place I go when I scope out a client’s corporate URL. What do I look for? In my opinion, there are three things every exceptional career site should include.

1. Great Employment Branding:

How do you tell your company’s story to potential job seekers? A good employment brand should first tie your consumer or corporate brand to hiring. It should also be unique, truthful, compelling and relevant to candidates visiting your corporate website. Be careful in believing it’s only about the verbiage and images on your site, because it goes well beyond this one possible interaction with seekers. It’s as much about how you are perceived by candidates in cyberspace and in your local community as it is what type of hiring experience you provide. Do you thank your candidates for applying? Do you clearly define what happens next once they apply to one of your jobs? Are you professional, courteous and consistent with communications to job seekers? It’s all critical to building a great brand!

2. Sensible Navigation:

Is it easy for the job seeker to find the career site and apply for a job? How many hoops does your seeker have to jump through to find the opportunity they are interested in? Can they find it without direction? In a perfect world, I believe candidates would only have to click ONE time from the home page to find your careers section. That one click would deliver the job seeker to an area that showcases all that makes you unique and hosts a simple way to search for a job. One of the biggest mistakes we see clients make is offering extremely confusing navigation on their site. It shouldn’t take 10 minutes to figure out where to go on your site to apply for a job. And, you shouldn’t ever drive candidates away from your site to a job site like Monster or Careerbuilder. You have paid big bucks on advertising to drive job seekers to your site, so keep them there and convert their interest into an application!

3. Killer Content:

What makes a candidate want to learn more about your opportunities or your company? It’s all about the information that you are sharing and the way that you share it. As my kids would say, “Keep it real” and stay away from content that looks as if it was written by legal counsel. Do remember to include testimonials, examples of community involvement, charitable endeavors, cultural information, benefits overview and commitment to diversity recruiting efforts. Videos are a great way to highlight all that makes your company stand apart and have become a must have for companies looking to attract Gen-Y.

So, there you have my rant for the day! I hope that I can help someone out there.

I am interested to hear what you think!

Posted: August 22nd, 2011
at 12:46pm by Deb Andrychuk

Tagged with Career Site, Content, Employment Branding, online recruiting, recruiting

Categories: Employment Branding

Comments: No comments

Happy Designers Produce Amazing Work – Thank you PSAV : )

There are 100s, 1,000s … 10s of thousands of amazing designers in the United States alone. How many are relevant? How many are practical? How many do you trust?

You’ve been through several agencies and there hasn’t been a good fit, yet. You’ve saved the last 50k of your VC money to find and hire the most talented agency on the planet.

We’ll be honest with whoever knocks on our door. You can hire The Arland Group because we are reliable, intelligent and trustworthy. But, if our work isn’t beautiful … really, what’s the point. We encourage all of our prospective clients to “shop the look”. We DO produce amazing results for our clients because we are very talented folks, but most importantly because OUR CLIENTS TRUST US.

You fancy yourself as a great designer, photographer, social media guru? You just might be. But, you’ve knocked on our door and you’ve put your trust in The Arland Group. Now, let go and enjoy the experience.

Our design team doesn’t always focus on being “Out of the Box”: We’d rather “change what the box looks like”.

Take for instance one of our favorite clients: PSAV

When PSAV contracted us to imagine their employment branding and recruitment website … we were ecstatic.

PSAV needed a simple tagline that expressed a fast-paced, demanding, exciting lifestyle that is a PSAV associate. “You’re On.” not only harks back to “showtime”, it says “you’re the (wo)man”. You are in control. You are in the drivers seat. You contol your success.

BOLD is what our design team had in the back of their minds when conceptualizing PSAV’s career website. PSAV’ers are techy and fast paced – they embrace the latest in social networking and technology, thus Real-time Twitter feeds. To our best knowledge, no other recruitment website has taken this approach. We also built microsites to better target segments of PSAV’s employment initiatives: Another first in the industry.

Of yeah … and it doesn’t end there …