5 examples of how you cannot treat HR-branding

No, we will not talk about any specific companies, because it’s not about specific failures, but about. Let’s talk about the experience, which, it seems to us, can seriously affect your view of HR-branding.

In general, we always urge you not to follow blindly statements like “you need a career page” or “you have to engage in social recruiting”. All individually, everything especially, everything depends on the company and always before you start to create something or change your recruiting strategy, you need to make sure that you need it. For this there is an analyst, for this there is the opportunity to conduct research within your company.

So, here are 5 examples of how not to treat hr-branding. Headings are quotes found on real career pages or heard in real practice.

“We have a two-minute video, which tells about all important aspects of our corporate culture”

We saw, we know.

Some videos, of course, are incredibly cool. But in 90% all these videos are uninteresting and generally useless. And all because no one considers it necessary to approach this from the other side – the whole story ends on smiling employees and types of office. And this is already not enough for the candidates, although, undoubtedly, they will look – everyone is curious about what is inside the big companies.

How to escape from this vicious circle?

The best thing you can do is ask your employees what they think about this kind of video. What would they like to show their friends, colleagues, parents in the end? Inspiring music, meaningless quotes, busy and smiling employees are all stamps that are in the language that have already appeared and are firmly entrenched in corporate video. And they enrage. Just remember that by removing 10 people who repeat “this beautiful company” unrestrainedly, you are unlikely to actually attract good candidates.

“We need only those people who will understand how cool to become a part of our company”

That is, you a priori deprive a person of the opportunity to think otherwise, otherwise see the pros and cons of working with you? Not the best move.

And we found this quote above on the company’s career site, it was simply impossible to focus on it. Immediately it becomes obvious that neither the employees themselves, nor the candidates are not respected and take into account their opinion will not.

If your career page now is simply a huge heap of meaningless and supposedly motivating information, objectively – you do not need it. And if the design leaves much to be desired, and UX designers just cry bitter tears when they look at it, then you lose potential candidates and the company’s karma drops sharply.

Just imagine: you buy a bicycle, you have already chosen the right one in the online store, but it took you 20 minutes to figure out if it’s possible to drive at all – will we buy? Hardly.

“We sell positions to candidates right during the interview”

Surely you have always prepared a convincing speech (pitching?), With which you can skillfully interest the candidate. So why not record it on video? Or do not post in the form of text with cute pictures on your website?

This kind of “intrigue”, they say, will talk about everything at the interview, just does not help you attract talented and hardworking candidates simply because they are smart enough to appreciate their time. And they know for sure that if there is no information in the public access, then they will not whisper anything good.

And if they do not hear anything interesting from you in the interview, or your corporate culture does not seem so attractive, then you and they will lose a lot of time. And your company also means. So we remind you that candidates also appreciate, when there are facts, there are specifics, there is at once all the information for decision-making. This is again a conversation about respect, because they come to you in search of it including.

By the way, statistics show that modern candidates spend about two hours to find out everything that interests them about the company before the interview.

“Branding is, of course, very important, but we need to find candidates urgently and this is our main task”

Talent and time runs away very quickly. Of course, in the business sphere, the problem of solving the problem is always very acute, whereas the issues of branding are a minor matter. Especially in deadline mode.

We are well aware that branding is unlikely to be a priority for you. But it does not require sharp and urgent solutions – everything should be thought out and come with experience. We have already told you about how Airbnb approached travel mapping on their career resources – it was brainstorming, the whole team discussed what feelings the candidate has to different aspects of working in the company, it was an honest conversation about the benefits and shortcomings, so that to create their own simple career site they had to work hard with the team. And they succeeded.

So try to change and regulate your strategy. For example, start by writing an article on how best to prepare for the interview. You know this better than anyone else in the company, and only 3,000 characters can significantly increase the level of loyalty to you as an employer.

“We planned this for 2018 and now we are considering the branding strategy”

Most likely in 2018 it will be too late to be engaged in branding. Because this is a cumulative experience and the sphere of recruiting changes every day, constantly mixing with marketing in recent times. In addition, your branding strategy will not have an immediate effect. It is necessary to fill a couple of cones. And then a dozen. Do not delay – now start to take small steps towards creating a brand, studying the practice of other companies, finding special features of the work you have, talking to employees and trying to better understand the candidates.

Just imagine what would happen if Pepsi spent a huge amount of money on marketing, and Coca-Cola just let it go. They would have been bankrupt for a long time. Those who learn to adapt technology, and not postpone it for later, win. Otherwise, you can be the last to jump into a departing train. And there already may not be free places.