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Protecting Your Employment Brand – Lessons From the Oracle of Omaha

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Warren Buffett

Warren Buffett is a pretty smart guy. This quote crystallizes how important it is for your staffing firm to protect its employment brand. Here are a few reasons why:

The ASA Skills Gap Index currently lists 172 positions – 172! – that are “hard to fill.” If your employment agency can’t attract the best candidates in tight markets, your clients will turn to firms that can. And how do you attract those great candidates? You guessed it – by maintaining a strong employment brand.

Your candidates – particularly the angry applicants you can’t place – are becoming more vocal than ever. Instead of merely telling a few friends on the phone that they had a bad experience, frustrated candidates turn to social media and review sites to share their opinions en masse.

How can Warren Buffett help?

Take a look at the second part of his quote. If your staffing firm is suffering from an image problem, do things differently! Use these tips to prevent scathing candidate reviews that damage your employment brand:

Set clear expectations.
Make sure front-line employees are well-versed in your industries and job categories. If a potential candidate falls outside your staffing firm’s focus area(s), ask your team to be honest about your ability to find the individual work.

Be honest about the assignments and positions you have available, too.
No job or employer is perfect, so representing opportunities accurately will build your staffing firm’s credibility (and protect your employment brand) over the long-run.

Be clear.  
Make sure that your website, career portal, and job postings all clearly (and consistently) explain your screening, interviewing, selection and placement processes. When candidates apply for jobs with eyes wide open, they’re less likely to complain when they don’t wind up finding a job through your staffing firm.

Be more proactive.
Instead of worrying about the next angry applicant you couldn’t place to air his dirty laundry digitally, go on the offensive:

Take a look at your review sites.
Visit platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook and Glassdoor to find out what applicants are saying about you. Read all the reviews – even the ones that sting – to identify potential problems. Focus on identifying patterns or themes to the complaints disgruntled candidates post.

Work on improving the issues you can.
Take a look at the patterns you identified to see what you can fix. While it’s impossible to please every candidate every time, implementing one or two small changes could make a big positive impact on future reviews – and your employment brand.

Generate more positive reviews.
There is no better way to bury negative comments than with positive reviews.  Make a concerted effort to turn your best candidates and clients into advocates.  (And if you need help we have a service dedicated exclusively to online reputation management that makes it effortless for your staffing service to build more positive reviews, limit negative ones and protect your employment brand.)

Want to learn more?


Contact Haley Marketing today for a free demo of our reputation management services for staffing firms.

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