Are you ready to build your employment brand? This post outlines the steps to success!
Missed our last post in the series? Check it out here:
Drive Your Employment Brand with Content Part 1: What’s An Employment Brand?
Step 1(a): Define what makes you unique.
Branding is about clearly defining how you want to be seen. To begin the process, start with the fundamentals:
- Review your company values, mission and vision – determine what they mean for job seekers and employees.
- Consider your company culture and candidate experience. Make sure you clearly understand what it’s like to find a job through, and work for, your staffing firm.
- Translate those into a list of key differentiators, a positioning statement, and ultimately, an employee value proposition (more on that later).
- Once you define your brand messaging, integrate it into your corporate identity, website and collateral, and then build and promote it through content marketing.
Step 1(b): Convey warmth, competence and authenticity.
To create a strong employment brand, you must define your value, service offerings and differentiators in a way that no other company can match. But unfortunately, that ideal is simply not feasible for most staffing companies.
The harsh truth? Most staffing and recruiting firms can’t create a brand that’s 100% unique.
If your brand isn’t unique, what can you do?
Focus on warmth and competence.
Warmth is about showing how you care for candidates, internal employees, clients, your community and broader social interests. In today’s world, people want to work for (and work with) companies that care…companies that demonstrate warmth to others.
Competence is about being good at what you do. It’s about your knowledge, experience, and proven processes. It’s about the awards you have won, the problems you know how to solve, and the social proof (testimonials and reviews) of the value you deliver.
So, whether you’re unique or not, clearly defining the characteristics of your business that demonstrate your warmth and competence can help you build a powerful employment brand.
And above all else, be authentic.
Job seekers are more discerning than ever. If you try to present your agency – or your clients’ jobs – as anything other than what they are, people will find out the truth (hello, Glassdoor) – and either never apply or walk off an assignment.
The lesson here? While it’s true that great people want to work for great companies, it’s equally true that no staffing firm (or brand) is perfect. People realize that each employer and job come with its challenges. So never gild the lily. Build an authentic, honest brand that reflects what your staffing firm is all about and shows you’re continually striving for improvement.
Step 2: Define your EVP.
Building your reputation as a credible staffing firm – and a great agency to work for – will undoubtedly impact whether qualified candidates will decide to work with you…or your competitor. If you’re ready to take the reins, the first step is defining a clear Employee Value Proposition (EVP).
Your EVP tells people the unique value you bring to the table for employees in exchange for their skills, commitment and hard work. When crafted properly, it’s a powerful magnet for attracting candidates.
As you think about your EVP, ask yourself:
- What your staffing company does differently for your candidates, temporary workers and employees that your competitors do not?
- What are some positive things candidates and employees say about working with you?
- Why do happy employees continue to work with your company?
- Aside from a paycheck, what benefits do you offer? (Think beyond health insurance – today’s job seekers value everything from career guidance to mental health resources.)
- How well do you communicate the flexibility you offer employees? (Schedule flexibility, the ability to take breaks between assignments, and the opportunity to choose short- or long-term assignments are essential to the modern job seeker – and incredibly important motivators. Make sure you’re communicating these benefits in your EVP.)
- Have you done anything noteworthy to take care of candidates and/or employees during the pandemic? (Everyone wants to work for a company that genuinely cares about them, and showing what you’ve done to go above and beyond can be a real difference-maker.)
Up Next: Using Content to Drive Your Employment Brand Part 3: Integrating Content Marketing
So far we’ve defined employment branding and outlined the steps to successfully build your own, but what now? Our next post in the series discusses the first steps to integrating content marketing into your strategy. But if you don’t want to wait, you can check out the full ebook here!